


To The Last Drop

by bendingsignpost



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Assault, Blood, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Character Death, Dubcon Kissing, Dubious Consent, Everybody Dies, Explicit Sexual Content, Friendship/Love, M/M, Mental Instability, One-Sided Relationship, Pining, Plague, Straight John, Suicide Attempt, Terminal Illnesses, Tragedy, Unhappy Ending, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Violence, not-straight Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:43:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you want <i>me</i> to comfort <i>you</i> over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns. </p><p>(Eventual off-screen character death.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrettyArbitrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/gifts).



The floorboards creak through the office carpeting. John opens a door and dust rises in the beam of his torch. Only a thin layer of dust, but no obvious tracks.  
  
Which, hm, that might be one. Bit of a smudge, really. Something pulled across the floor? John turns the corner and eases open the stairwell door. Footsteps and dragging patterns are clearer on the stairs.  
  
Nodding to himself, he fishes out his mobile and texts Sherlock, his torch tucked into his armpit.  _Found tracks on third floor. Maybe 4 people? Something dragged._  
  
The response is nearly instant:  _Need moment. Will follow. SH_  
  
John pockets his mobile and tracks the marks down the hall. His ears strain for any sound beyond his own motions and the idiosyncrasies of the abandoned building. After the two other buildings tonight, all empty, his mind wants to play tricks on him. No squatters in this building, not yet, and the absence of Sherlock’s homeless network doesn’t reassure.  
  
He sees the open door before he fully registers the sound. It’s a noise he recognises from his home life during secondary school, the sound of a teenage girl crying and trying to be quiet about it.  
  
He mouths a curse and softens his steps. So much for finding the smuggler’s drop-off point. He keeps the torch aimed on the floor. Slowly, he approaches the door. A stink rises as he draws nearer.  
  
“...Dad?” a wavering voice asks.  
  
Oh, Jesus. “Sorry,” John says, keeping on his side of the door frame. “I’m not your dad, but I am a doctor. Are you hurt?”  
  
“I’m okay,” the girl says, an absolute lie. He can hear the tears clinging to those words, ready to drip. A girl, but not a young girl: she sounds like Harry in her teens.  
  
“What’s your name?” John asks. “I’m John.”  
  
She shifts on the other side of the wall, a sound of cloth and muffled whimpering. She’s getting further away from the door. The stink worsens as she stirs the air. Faeces and urine, definitely. Below that, the cloying scent of infection. She’s been left here, but the door isn’t even latched. Psychological control or is she chained to something?  
  
John swallows down a bit of bile and says, “I won’t come in if you don’t want me to. Are you waiting for your dad?”  
  
“They’re coming back,” the girl says. “They have to, they  _need_ me.”  
  
“They do,” John agrees, his voice soft against her desperation. Sherlock could play along better than this, but John simply wants to punch a hole in the wall. “Could be they’ve gotten lost. I’m doing a bit of walking in the area, maybe I could find them.”  
  
“...We don’t want strangers.”  
  
“They might need help finding you. What are their names?”  
  
“There’s... there’s my dad. And my mum. Mr Zabrick should be with them, but we lost Joel. They’re taking Joel out.”  
  
Is that what—who—was dragged out? “And who should I say is looking for them?” John asks.  
  
“Alexis.”  
  
“Thank you, Alexis.”  
  
Alexis starts to cry, shaking sobs muffled against a blanket. She says something John can’t make out.  
  
“What was that?” John asks as gently as he can.  
  
“ _I need them _back__ ,” she cries. “They’re not supposed to leave, they’re supposed to be here, they’re supposed to _love me_.”  
  
His stomach turns. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” John says, speaking to his circle of torchlight on the floor. “How long have you been here?”  
  
“I don’t know...?”  
  
“Do you know how long they’ve been gone?”  
  
“Too long. I was asleep when they left.” Her fragile voice hardens. “It’s my turn, and they’re not supposed to leave when it’s my turn.”  
  
“Your turn.”  
  
“They can’t leave me alone when it’s my turn. It’s not  _fair_.” She starts crying again and something thumps against the wall. “They’re supposed to love me, where  _are_ they?”  
  
“Your turn at what?” John asks.  
  
She sniffles.  
  
John counts to thirty for an answer. Then he asks, “How about we go find your family together, eh? Take a look around with my torch, you and me.”  
  
“I can last until they come home,” Alexis says. “I can, really, I’m good, I can do it.”  
  
John closes his eyes. He takes as deep a breath as he can with the stink. He exhales and attempts to uncurl his tight fist. The torch ought to crack with the force he’s holding it. “If it’s your turn, I shouldn’t leave you alone, then, should I?”  
  
She hesitates before asking, “Stay?”  
  
“Okay. I’m right out here. I’m going to stay on my side of the door unless you want me to come in.”  
  
When she doesn’t say anything, John sticks the torch into his mouth and texts Sherlock.  _Found abused girl on third floor. Sounds like bad condition, called this shithole “home.”Expects three adults to return, possibly four._  He silences his mobile after sending the text. He doesn’t know what sounds might make her panic. As it is, she starts crying again.  
  
“Is there’s something I can do to help?” John asks quietly.  
  
“I need them to come back.” She hiccups a bit. “They can’t just leave me, they’re supposed to be here.” She blows her nose on something and whispers, “It  _hurts_.”  
  
“It doesn’t have you be your turn anymore,” John says. “It’s all right. You can stop.” His mobile flashes in his hand.  
  
 _On my way. SH_  
  
John breathes easier. “Alexis, I can get you help. Do you want help?”  
  
“Yeah... You can come in.”  
  
John shifts his weight slowly, pointing his torch at the base of the door before he takes so much as a step. Through the wall, he can hear her moving, wrapping a blanket tight about herself. He approaches delicately and pushes the door open farther. The reek of the room strikes him like a physical blow.  
  
Alexis whimpers in the corner and John reflexively shines the torch at her rank pallet. Longer limbed than expected, she throws up her arms in front of her face. “It’s bright!”  
  
“Jesus.” He lowers the torch, but the marks on her arms are plain as day. Laceration, abrasion, puncture, compression, his head lists as his heart goes cold. The gun at the small of his back abruptly grows heavy. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to blind you.” His words sound hollow.  
  
She keeps her hands over her face, and she turns her head to the side. Christ, her neck. Who could maul their own kid like that? Alexis shies away from the light, warier of the glare than the damage her movements bring. “Turn it off.”  
  
John aims the torch at the wall instead. All the light upon her is reflected off the mottled wallpaper. The stains on her nest of blankets overwhelm its indeterminate original colour. She’s not skinny and long of limb, as his first impression implied. No, this is a teenager near her last growth spurt, not after it. She’s emaciated and wasting away. “What hurts?” John asks. “I can help, I’m a doctor.”  
  
“I need them to come back,” she explains. She folds in on herself, forehead against her knees, arms wrapped around her shins. Her t-shirt sleeve rises with motion, and the marks continue up under it. “I love them, they love me, where are they? It hurts, I  _need_ them.”  
  
“I know,” John says gently. “What’s hurting you?” There might be restraints on her legs under the blanket, but she’s moving too easily for that. What is it?  
  
Alexis shakes her head against her knees. The snarls of her unwashed hair change her silhouette into something damaged. In lieu of reply, she unclenches her hand from her bruised wrist and reaches out.  
  
John takes her hand. Her fingernails are dirty, torn, but her knuckles aren’t scraped. She’s been clawing, not punching. “You’re safe now,” John promises. “It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be your turn now.”  
  
She lifts her face. Her reddened eyes find John’s, and he mentally adjusts her age up to young twenties. Not an abused girl but a woman wounded back into a child.  
  
The floorboards creak and Alexis flinches, tugging John’s hand close. “That’s not them,” she whispers.  
  
“Sherlock?” John calls.  
  
“John, come out here,” Sherlock says from the hall.  
  
Alexis’ grip on John’s hand tightens. If she weren’t in such poor shape, it would have hurt. “Don’t go. You can’t leave now.”  
  
“I’m not leaving,” John promises. “Can he come in too?”  
  
Sherlock doesn’t wait for permission. He barges in, scans the entire room with a sweep of his torch, and stares at Alexis. Twisted in his kneel, John looks up at Sherlock with a frown. Sherlock takes a slow step forward. John’s fingers protest Alexis’ firm hold.  
  
“It’s all right,” John tells her, looking back to her. The words die on his lips.  
  
Alexis stares at Sherlock as if expecting him to kill her, as if expecting to kill him herself.  
  
“He’s not a threat,” John promises, and Sherlock touches John’s back. Sherlock touches his back, low, and lifts the hem of John’s coat. John freezes as Sherlock draws John’s gun free of his waistband. “...Sherlock?” He glances over his shoulder, and in turning, he pulls his hand back the barest amount.  
  
John sees Sherlock’s eyes widen an instant before pain floods his hand. “Jesus fuck!” John yells, but Alexis bites down harder, her teeth sharp in the flesh of John’s palm.  
  
Sherlock fires into her chest. The blast rings out next to John’s ear. Alexis collapses. Sherlock fires a second shot. Sherlock grips John by the collar and hauls him back. John catches himself on the floor, sprawled on bum and elbows. Sherlock shoots Alexis’ corpse in the head. John’s hand stings. It feels wet.  
  
John picks up his torch. He shines the light on his right hand. “Sherlock,” he says.  
  
“You’re a doctor!” Sherlock bellows. “How could you not see she was infected? Did you even look at the rest of the room?” He crouches down, his torch aimed on John, the gun aimed on Alexis even now. “You’re bleeding.”  
  
“I noticed.” The words fall from his lips as easily as blood from his hand.  
  
“ _How could you not realise?_ ”  
  
“We’re hundreds of miles off from nearest quarantine zone,” John says. “We’re...”  
  
They both stare at John’s hand, at the ring of teeth marks and the ring of welling blood.  
  
“Do you suppose,” John says, “if I cut my arm off right now...”  
  
“How could you not notice?” Sherlock berates him. He gestures wildly with his torch and the gun. “Look at the bloodstains. Look at the nesting. John, look at  _her_! How could you not see those were consensual wounds?”  
  
John holds out his left hand for his gun. “Stop waving it. Give it here.”  
  
Sherlock very nearly does before snatching it back at the last instant. “No,” Sherlock says. “No. You are not doing that.”  
  
“She was infected,” John says.  
  
“Yes, and now she’s dead.”  
  
John shows Sherlock his hand.  
  
“We don’t know for certain,” Sherlock says. “It's possible she wasn't ready for a transferring bite. We need to run tests.”  
  
They do. God, they do. John exhales a shaking breath before pulling out his mobile. He dials 999 but doesn’t manage to hit Send before Sherlock snatches up John’s mobile and drops his torch in the same motion.  
  
“Don’t be an idiot. The new policy is in full effect now. They’ll sedate you and you’ll never wake up.”  
  
“If I test positive--”  
  
“If you test positive, I’ll buy you a muzzle,” Sherlock promises.  
  
John giggles. He giggles into trembling laughter, and then he catches sight of Alexis again and starts to cry. When Sherlock pulls him up, John very nearly asks where his gun and mobile went, but Sherlock has pockets. Using his sleeve, John wipes the tears off his face. “Sorry.”  
  
“We need to wash that out,” Sherlock tells him. “I’m taking you home.”  
  
“But the case--”  
  
“I’m taking you home.” Sherlock tugs on him until John stands. “I’ve sufficient equipment to run your tests. I’ll not risk an overexcited response team killing you.”  
  
John can’t stop staring at his hand. It bleeds and stings and he needs stitches. “I need to call an ambulance.”  
  
“No, we’re taking a cab.”  
  
“Sherlock, if I go home, I could hurt you,” John says. “I could hurt Mrs Hudson.”  
  
“If you test positive, I will buy you a muzzle,” Sherlock repeats. His words prick at each other as if made of bristles. “If I can no longer handle you, I’ll call an ambulance then.”  
  
“What, for both of us?” John shakes his head. “All three of us? I’m not risking that.”  
  
“The longer we argue, the worse condition you’ll be in when we get home.” He pulls a latex glove out of his pocket. “Put it on. We can’t have you dripping.”  
  
John pulls the glove on as carefully as he can with his shaking hands. He has to pocket his torch. “Sherlock, we can’t contain this.”  
  
“I can contain you,” Sherlock says. “You can’t enter the final stage unless it keeps passing host to host. That much is established.”  
  
“It was hurting her.” He looks at the shadowy mess that was Alexis. “She didn’t even want me in here, she just... Oh, God.”  
  
“She needed someone to bite, yes. And we need to leave before the vessels return. They’d try to keep you.”  
  
“Vessels,” John repeats blankly. His mental dictionary summons up an image of boats before crumpling in on itself.  
  
“The carrier.” Sherlock points at Alexis but his eyes remain on John. “The vessel holding the developing parasite is the carrier. The vessels alternate carrying it until it fully converts one of them. John, you know this.”  
  
“You can stop talking now. The last thing I need right now is a biology lecture.” He takes a step and wobbles. Sherlock grabs his arm and John flinches away. “You really shouldn’t touch me.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “We’re not exchanging body fluids.” He wraps his arm around John’s back and pulls John into the hallway. The stink clings to them, but John breathes easier with every step. His dizziness grows worse.  
  
“I don’t feel so well,” John confesses.  
  
“Because you’re hyperventilating, yes.”  
  
John tries not to. He stumbles as the world spins.  
  
Sherlock tugs him tighter against his side. “Holding your breath won’t work either.”  
  
“Right,” John gasps. “Sorry.”  
  
They navigate far too many stairs. They emerge onto the pavement. John wants to stop and sit. Sherlock keeps him going. Streets later, Sherlock flags down a cab. John hides his hand in his pocket. The cabbie makes no comment on the stink that still fills John’s nose. For his part, John says nothing and tries not to think until they stop and climb out onto the familiar ground of Baker Street.  
  
Sherlock pulls John’s wallet out of his back pocket, making him jump, and John’s money goes to the cabbie. Standing extremely close, even for him, Sherlock keeps John in front of him as he unlocks the front door.  
  
“Upstairs,” Sherlock instructs, pushing on the door and John in equal measure. “Do whatever you can, I’ll order supplies.”  
  
John does as he’s told. He fetches his medical kit from the loo and Sherlock clears off the kitchen table. Whenever John looks up from his hand, Sherlock’s gaze is on his own mobile. John nearly snaps at him before realising that Sherlock’s ordering online.  
  
“What are you getting?” John asks.  
  
“I told you. Supplies.”  
  
“Right. We find out whether I’m playing biological hot potato and,” John swallows, “and then that’s that.”  
  
Sherlock hums at his mobile in clear disagreement.  
  
“Sherlock, we have to.” John keeps his eyes on his hand. Should he go through the bother of stitching it up if he has to die in a few hours?  
  
“We can work something out. We still don’t know if she was ready to pass the parasite into a new host.”  
  
“What are you going to do, lock me in the attic until I get bitey?”  
  
“No, we don’t have one. Your room will suffice. I have handcuffs in case your self-control wanes. The muzzle will take two days for delivery, unfortunately.” Sherlock keeps tapping at his phone. “If we can prevent the parasite from jumping to a new host and enhancing, your immune system might be able to defeat it.”  
  
“Right, because no one’s ever tried that before. Hospitals have never thought of that.” When Sherlock fails to respond, John starts stitching up his hand after all. Thank God it’s his right hand. He’d never be able to stitch himself up right-handed. “Mm, yes, definitely looking forward to the brain-frying fever.”  
  
Sherlock pounds his fist on the table and John jumps, sticking himself with the needle where he doesn’t need any sticking. “John, we have two options. First, we call 999 and there ends any control we have of the situation. Second, we administer the test ourselves. If you’re fine, we bring you to hospital to treat anything else you might have picked up. If you’re not, we take our chances. You live or you die, but we don’t let anyone kill you.”  
  
“This is a terrible plan.”  
  
“Do you want to die?” Sherlock demands. He shoves his mobile into his inner jacket pocket.  
  
“Can I have my mobile back?”  
  
Sherlock’s mouth forms a tight line.  
  
John watches him a moment before returning to the work on his hand. His stitches are neat and regular, his adrenaline keeping the pain down without making him shake. “If you can’t trust me with a  _phone_ , we should probably end this now.”  
  
“We won’t learn anything until the morning,” Sherlock tells him. “Until then, you stay in your room.”  
  
John shakes his head. “My door opens inward. It locks from the inside, too. We don’t know how long it will take for me to, well. You know what.”  
  
“You’re going to handcuff yourself to your bed.”  
  
Slowly, deliberately, John blinks. He replays that last sentence. It’s not any better the second time. “What’s a step worse than ‘terrible’? Abysmal. This is an abysmal plan, Sherlock.” He ties off his stitches and snips the ends. He packs away his kit. “I shouldn’t have come home. Jesus, what were we thinking?”  
  
Sherlock takes hold of the medical kit. He grips it until John lets it go. He doesn’t speak until John looks him in the eyes. “There were three vessels returning to that building to find their carrier. Either their carrier is dead and they would have killed us for it, or that carrier is you and they would have forcibly kept you. I would then be in the position of calling emergency services down upon you before your ‘biological hot potato’ game ended and a full outbreak began.”  
  
John’s stomach turns over. Excerpts from medical journals and news reports shove themselves to the forefront of his brain. They boil down into four stages.  
  
Stage one: contamination of the individual by airborne strain. A single host, deemed the carrier.  
  
Stage two: contamination of a group. The original carrier orally passes the parasite into the bloodstream of another. Former hosts, deemed vessels, wait to be bitten again. The parasite is passed among an increasingly tight group. With each new occupation of a body, it develops and further converts that body into a more suitable environment. It goes after the immune system and the nervous system first. The earliest known signs are sensations of localised heat, followed by jaw pain. Waiting vessels experience chills.  
  
Stage three: the carrier becomes unable to transmit the parasite and becomes a permanent host. The parasite can now reproduce in its modified environment. The vessels wait nearby.  
  
Stage four: outbreak. The permanent host kills all remaining vessels. Fresh parasites enter the corpses and continue reproduction. Each corpse produces a variation on the strain. When the corpses begin to burst, the strains become airborne until encountering a new carrier. The permanent host of the original parasite continues the killing spree until killed or dying of exhaustion.  
  
“I can’t stay here,” John says.  
  
“Why, do you want to bite me?” Sherlock asks.  
  
John glares, but Sherlock’s expression remains one of unfeigned earnestness.  
  
“Have you even thought about it?” Sherlock continues. “Picture me bleeding and—there, your face, that was revulsion.”  
  
Though a scream fights his throat for escape, John forces his words below a shout. “I don’t want to kill you, you idiot.”  
  
“Then you are, for the moment, fine. If we monitor you, there’s no reason you can’t stay here, at least for tonight.”  
  
With that, Sherlock hugs the medical kit against his chest. His hands grip his sleeves at the elbows. The contrast between the black fabric and his pale skin gives the illusion of a freezing man. It’s enough to pull John out of his own head and back into the room.  
  
Sherlock looks like he’s dying. No, he looks like his best friend is dying, his only friend, and John supposes that’s an accurate summary.  
  
“Okay,” John says. “Fine. I cuff myself to my bed tonight and we’ll know what to do in the morning. But I want my phone. If I dislocate my shoulder in the middle of the night, I’m calling you.” He holds out his hand, his left hand.  
  
Sherlock shifts the medical kit in his arm and pulls John’s mobile out of his pocket. He puts it in John’s hand without flinching, without pulling away from him in the slightest.  
  
“Where’s my gun?” John asks. “In your coat?”  
  
“You don’t need it for anything tonight.”  
  
“True. I just want to know where it is.”  
  
“Why?” Sherlock narrows his eyes. His grip on the medical kit tightens, as if it’s a teddy bear full of bandages and antiseptic.  
  
“Because it’s a loaded gun.” He doesn’t snap or yell. He states this through gritted teeth and points in the direction of the sitting room wall.  
  
“I’ll empty it.” Sherlock’s eyes drop to some vague middle distance through their kitchen table. “You’re right, it shouldn’t be loaded.”  
  
“What if— ” John stops and forces himself to complete the question. “What if I attack you?”  
  
“Are you likely to?”  
  
“You’re starting to piss me off, so maybe.”  
  
Sherlock’s mouth twitches. “Let’s put you upstairs.”  
  
They climb with John in front, Sherlock behind. His presence comforts John almost as much as it worries him. In John’s bedroom, they sort out what can be done to John’s door and which part of John’s headboard he ought to be cuffed to. They plan and they plan, and beyond John’s nerves and fear, he feels fine. He might be fine. God, let him be fine.  
  
When he’s as ready for bed as he’ll ever be, Sherlock hands him the cuffs. John takes them with his undamaged hand. “You do have a key for these, right?” John asks.  
  
Sherlock nods. His eyes are strange, not in colour, but in sheen.  
  
“Right.” John clears his throat. “So. I should...” He points over his shoulder.  
  
Sherlock nods a second time. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, as if a foreign object trapped there.  
  
John doesn’t move. Neither does Sherlock.  
  
“Well,” John says. “Just in case this is my last night sane.” He holds out his hand only to recall the stitches, the contaminated area, and he pulls back before Sherlock can touch his palm.  
  
Rolling his eyes, Sherlock pops first his shirt collar, then his jacket collar. When John blinks up at him, Sherlock steps forward, and John’s face fits against that freshly raised barrier of cloth. Sherlock’s arms are slim but firm, his chest solid and stable with his overly controlled breaths.  
  
John nearly jerks away. He should. He doesn’t. Instead, he presses his eyes against Sherlock’s shoulder until the blurring stops. It’s a bit like being inside a cage, which is where John ought to properly be.  
  
“I can solve this,” Sherlock promises.  
  
John lifts his face from a wet patch on Sherlock’s jacket and clears his throat. “You’ll wake me up when you’ve made the test?”  
  
“The earliest delivery is at five.”  
  
“Okay.” John pulls back his duvet and slips underneath. He spends a moment sorting out which hand he wants to cuff and chooses the injured, right one. It’s very much a hand which ought to be locked up. Once settled, he asks, “Could you get the light?”  
  
Sherlock turns off the lights. “I’ll be in the hall.” With that, he closes the door and leaves John in the darkness.  
  
  
  
“I have it,” Sherlock announces, entering John’s room before John can do more than let out a groggy groan.  
  
Startled into it, John sits up and nearly wrenches his arm. “You have  _what_?”  
  
“The test.” Sherlock flicks on the lights, blinding John, a small tray in his other hand.  
  
John rubs his eyes with his good hand, his free hand. Otherwise, he sits still until his heart stops pounding so hard.  
  
“John?” Sherlock stops mid-step to pause outside of John’s reach. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“I thought you meant you had the infection,” John says. “So, you know, terrified for no reason, but otherwise fine.” He eyes the tray and the tubing. “Do you know how to take blood?”  
  
“Of course I do.”  
  
John breathes out a shaking sigh. “Okay. Okay, yeah, go ahead. With gloves on.”  
  
Sherlock carries over the chair from John’s desk to sit beside John’s bed. They don’t touch until Sherlock puts the gloves on. John holds his left arm out while Sherlock gets him ready. It’s embarrassing for a doctor, but John looks away from the needle just before he feels the pinch.  
  
“Relax,” Sherlock instructs, voice vibrating with tension.  
  
“You’re a great help, aren’t you.”  
  
“I am.” He jostles John’s arm while taking the second blood sample.  
  
A moment later, John feels the needle slide out and Sherlock presses a cotton swab to the inside of John’s elbow. In an awkward motion, Sherlock manages to tape it down without spilling John’s blood onto the bed.  
  
“How long?” John asks.  
  
“Half an hour for the short test, six hours for the long test.”  
  
“If either is positive, that’s it.”  
  
“Mm. I’ll run it in the kitchen.” Sherlock stands, all materials and wrappers in his gloved hands.  
  
“Use my desk.” John doesn’t mean to beg. He looks down at his lap. “I mean.” He swallows. “Look, it’s going to be an agonising half hour in any case--”  
  
“Six hours, John.”  
  
“—and I want to see it.”  
  
Sherlock looks at him, weighing. “Is that kinder?”  
  
“For me, it is,” John says.  
  
Sherlock nods. He strips off the gloves, deposits them in hazardous waste bag, and clears off John’s desk before snapping a second pair of gloves on. The efficiency of it, the competence, helps John breathe.  
  
He lies back down and closes his eyes. Exhaustion pulls at his tense body, but the need for the loo keeps him awake. He wiggles the fingers of his right hand, keeping it awake as well.  
  
An indeterminate time later, Sherlock snaps off the second pair of gloves. John opens his eyes and turns his head. “Half an hour from now? To be sure.”  
  
“Six hours,” Sherlock says, as if he really expects the first test to come out negative. “We’ll know for certain by half noon.”  
  
“I am  _definitely_ going to need the loo before then.”  
  
Sherlock eyes John’s handcuffed arm. “After the first test is finished.”  
  
Careful not to hurt himself, John sits up. He tries to adjust his arm into a comfortable position. “You can stop staring at me now.”  
  
“Do you feel any changes?” Sherlock asks.  
  
“Nothing that stress and terrible sleep couldn’t cause. I don’t know.”  
  
Sherlock twists in the desk chair, shifting his legs so his knees point to John. He sets his elbows atop his knees and fits his hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Do you want to bite me?”  
  
The laugh jumps out of John’s throat. Sherlock’s eyes widen and John starts giggling. “Oh, thank fucking God,” John says.  
  
Sherlock rises from the chair, his gaze flicking to the handcuffs. “What?”  
  
“I really don’t want to bite you,” John explains. “Sherlock, I don’t even want to punch you.” He sighs, so much tension leaving his body. “Oh my God, it’s actually that simple.”  
  
“Do you want to bite anyone?” Sherlock asks. He draws closer at a cautious pace, as if reeled in by his own line of sight. “Don’t just say ‘no,’ John.  _Think_ about it.”  
  
John thinks about it. He looks down at his bandaged hand and imagines putting his teeth against another person’s skin. His mind fills in the details with scenes from horror films. If he tries to picture himself in that role, his stomach turns over.  
  
“You don’t,” Sherlock says for him.  
  
John sags back against his headboard. His head thunks lightly on the wall. He closes his eyes and breathes. Oh, thank God. He could nearly pass out from relief, except he might piss the bed.  
  
Sherlock inhales sharply.  
  
“Sherlock? Oh,  _Jesus_. What the hell are you doing?”  
  
Scalpel in his right hand, blood welling up on the back of his left, Sherlock regards him calmly. “It’s not a deep cut.” Holding his left hand out toward John, Sherlock steps forward.  
  
“Are you mental?” John demands. “Sherlock, what the  _hell_ are you doing?”  
  
Sherlock grins. He holds his hand at the limit of John’s reach. “Are you looking?”  
  
“I swear to God, if you bleed on my floor--”  
  
“Still no desire for oral transmission?” Sherlock asks. “You wouldn’t need to puncture my skin now.”  
  
“No, I’m just going to punch you,” John snaps. “Bandage that, you idiot.”  
  
Sherlock’s grin becomes terrifying, otherwise known as his usual grin. “Brilliant. I’m sure you’ll be fine on your own while I take care of that.”  
  
John blinks though the exhaustion, the anger, through everything, and he sees Sherlock’s point. It’s a stupid point, but still a valid one. “We could have waited for the test to finish. No dramatics necessary.”  
  
Sherlock pulls a face. “Dull. Besides, it would have been an agonizing wait.”  
  
“Just take care of that before you start dripping,” John says.  
  
With a roll of his eyes, Sherlock flounces away, one hand bleeding, the other holding a scalpel.  
  
“And disinfect that before you put it back in my kit!” John shouts after him. Then he simply sits and waits. He keeps looking at the test on his desk, the small petri dishes positioned in a way that John can’t actually see their contents. When he finally gives in and checks the clock, there’s still the better part of twenty minutes left.  
  
Sherlock returns with nine minutes remaining. He keeps his distance with a stance of condescension, as if merely humouring John’s fears. He behaves as if there is no possibility of John being put down like a rabid animal. Sherlock’s confidence acts as a sealant on John’s and prevents his remaining hope from leaking out of the room.  
  
They talk about the case, about where else the smugglers might be hiding their wares, and John has to tell Sherlock when the half hour has passed. Thirty-two minutes, actually. His back to John’s desk, Sherlock doesn’t immediately respond.  
  
“I need to piss,” John reminds him. His voice remains remarkably steady.  
  
Arms folded, Sherlock glances over his shoulder. His expression never varies. He looks, and an eternity passes in a heartbeat. His arms fall to his side and he turns to pick up the test instructions.  
  
“Sherlock?”  
  
“I followed the protocol exactly,” Sherlock states. “This is the wrong colour. You don’t want to bite me. This is the wrong colour.”  
  
“Oh, Jesus.” His stomach churns on itself, but there’s nothing left to vomit. “It’s still incubating. Of course I don’t want to bite you.”  _Yet_.  
  
Sherlock picks up the quick test and stares at it as if his eyes can rewrite reality. He turns his head sharply to stare at John in exactly the same manner.  
  
For fuck's sake. “If you want  _me_  to comfort  _you_  over my imminent death, I will be kicking you in the head,” John warns.  
  
“We’ll wait for the second test,” Sherlock says.  
  
“If the quick one is positive, they’re both--”  
  
“We’ll wait.”  
  
“No we fucking won’t,” John says. “We’ll call emergency services, that’s what we’ll bloody well do.”  
  
“They’ll kill you,” Sherlock says.  
  
“Alexis killed me,” John corrects.  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. “We can sort this out.”  
  
“We really can’t.”  
  
“John--”  
  
“We  _can’t_.” John swallows. “I’m a biological time bomb.”  
  
“Don’t be dramatic,” Sherlock says, no trace of irony in his voice.  
  
“Would you shut up?”  
  
“Never,” Sherlock says. “There’s another option. I’ll think of one.”  
  
“Emergency services is a clean death,” John insists.  
  
“No such thing.”  
  
“Cleaner than attacking you and Mrs Hudson. Or baking with fever from not biting either of you. My corpse would still burst open and infect everyone in half a block, but at least I wouldn’t be making other corpses. Oh, here’s an idea: how about we track down Alexis’ family and see how well they’re doing in withdrawal? Maybe one of them will actually survive it. I mean, it’s not  _technically_ impossible--”  
  
“John, be quiet. I’m thinking.”  
  
“I’m going to kill you,” John says flatly. “And unintentionally, too, which is  _not_ the way I planned it. Call emergency services.”  
  
“Fine. I’ll summon the execution squad, shall I?” Feet planted, stance bold, Sherlock’s entire body forms a challenge.  
  
“Yes, please,” John says.  
  
Sherlock slams the quick test down on the desk. He closes his eyes. He fists his hands. His face contorts in a way John would rather not look at, and so John looks at his handcuffed wrist instead. Bruised a bit. Not so bad. It doesn’t actually matter anymore, but it’s something to pay attention to.  
  
Without another word, Sherlock storms out of John’s room and down the stairs. John listens, ears straining, bladder painful. He watches his clock, wondering when Sherlock will make the call, wondering when he made it, wondering why it’s taking so long for emergency services to get here.  
  
The pounding footsteps on the stairs are obviously Sherlock’s. John doesn’t hear sirens outside yet. Sherlock stops in John’s doorway, chest heaving. He tosses a plastic bucket onto John’s bed.  
  
“There,” Sherlock says. When John doesn’t move, Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Piss in that.”  
  
“You didn’t call, did you?”  
  
“Give me time.”  
  
“No,” John says. “Hell no.”  
  
“I’ll get Mrs Hudson out of the house,” Sherlock promises. “She’ll be safe.”  
  
“Right, and are you leaving too? Evacuating the neighbourhood? Because it’s a definite flaw in the plan if you aren’t.”  
  
“Give me time,” Sherlock repeats. “Not that you have much of an option, obviously, but if I’m going to save your life, it would be helpful to have your cooperation.”  
  
“Sherlock, you’re going to get both of us killed!”  
  
Sherlock merely winks at him and closes the door. “Give me time!” he shouts as he thunders down the stairs.  
  
John swears and he curses, and, ultimately, he pisses in the bucket.


	2. Chapter Two

Handcuffed to his headboard, John watches Sherlock install the bolts to the outside of John’s bedroom door. He watches Sherlock take care of the window. He studies the supplies Sherlock carries in and can only wonder at what else Sherlock must be keeping in the kitchen.  
  
“I need to move at some point,” John says.  
  
“Yes, that’s what the bolts are for,” Sherlock answers, now rifling through John’s closet. He confiscates all of John’s belts, as well as every shoe with laces. After a small pause, he takes all of John’s ties as well. “I’ll leave you the handcuff key and lock you in once everything’s ready.”  
  
“And then never unbolt the door again? Brilliant plan, perfect. Well done, Sherlock, I’m sure this will end well.”  
  
Sherlock chucks the former contents of John’s closet out into the hall. He stalks back to the closet and tugs out John’s luggage.  
  
“What are you doing?” John asks.  
  
“There are straps.”  
  
“What do you need straps for?”  
  
Sherlock shoots him a sharp look.  
  
John’s stomach drops. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to kill myself.”  
  
“You want to call emergency services. You are clearly suicidal.”  
  
John tries to cross his arms. Instead, he hurts his shoulder and wrist. “It’s called ‘damage control,’ you tit. I’m not going to leave you with my infected corpse.”  
  
Head tilted, eyes narrowed, Sherlock pins his gaze on John’s bitten hand. Sherlock chews on his lip. “Fine.” He proceeds to take John’s laptop and charger next. “I’m going to leave you with the handcuffs and the muzzle. Without visual confirmation that both are in place, I will not open the door.”  
  
“Visual confirmation?”  
  
“I’m taking out your doorknob,” Sherlock explains. “Can’t have you locking me out.”  
  
“Mm, because containment is for morons.”  
  
Sherlock ignores him. “For any instance where I need to open the door, you will put on the muzzle and cuff your hands behind your back. After I bolt the door shut, I’ll pass the key to you through the door.”  
  
John nods along. “And what happens when I refuse to do that? Or did you forget the part where I’ll be going  _insane_?”  
  
“No.” Unmoving, Sherlock stares into John’s desk drawers. “If you stop cooperating, that’s it.”  
  
“Fine. I’m not cooperating.”  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. “You’ll get hungry.”  
  
“For your  _blood_ , yes.”  
  
“We’ll see.” Sherlock makes one last search of the room, terrifyingly thorough. Anything that could double as an escape tool, Sherlock takes. Once he’s excavated every other part of the room, Sherlock drops to the floor and peers under John’s bed from a distance. “Last one.”  
  
“What? Oh, Jesus. No, you leave that,” John tells him, but Sherlock pulls out the shoebox anyway.  
  
Sherlock opens it and says, “Oh.”  
  
“Or burn it,” John amends. “When I die, you burn my porn mags. Do  _not_ keep those. Oi, stop it.”  
  
With complete disregard for all that is private and excruciatingly awkward, Sherlock quickly flips through the next two magazines. His expression never so much as flickers. Much to John’s horror, Sherlock focuses on the pages themselves instead of the far more interesting pictures printed upon them. “Yes, yes, into the fireplace,” Sherlock says in the most put-upon of tones.  
  
John takes a deep breath. “Look. I know I can’t exactly get it notarised now, but if I write down an update to my will, will you follow it?”  
  
“In the event of your eventual death, yes.” Sherlock drops the porn mags back into the box, drops the tube of lube in after, and shuts the lid. With deliberate flair, he pushes the shoebox toward its home under John’s bed. “Is there anything I’m missing?”  
  
“You already took the bullets?”  
  
Sherlock nods.  
  
“Then I think that’s everything.”  
  
His hands on his hips, Sherlock takes another quick look around John’s bedroom. “I’ll bring up another bucket and the muzzle.”  
  
“That’s biohazardous material, Sherlock.”  
  
“Biohazardous waste, yes,” Sherlock says so flippantly that John nearly laughs. “I know what I’m doing. Stop doubting me.”  
  
“I feel more confident when I can feel my fingers again.” He wiggles them pointedly.  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes, but it’s like he’s rolling pebbles instead of the usual boulders, like he can't even spare the energy to be overdramatic. “Give me a minute.” He exits without waiting for reply, bolting the door behind him. He rumbles down the stairs and then John can no longer hear him.  
  
John’s chest tightens around his heart, around his lungs. His motion close to involuntary, he tests the restraint and tugs at the headboard. The world tilts and John stops. He forces himself to resume breathing. He adjusts his arm as well as he can.  
  
An eternity later—two minutes, according to his clock—Sherlock returns. “John?” Sherlock’s brow furrows. “Is it worse?”  
  
He shakes his head, more a tremble than a gesture.  
  
“John?”  
  
“It’s, ah.” John swallows. “It’s setting in.”  
  
Sherlock sets down the fresh bucket. “How strong is the urge to bite?”  
  
“What? No, God, Jesus, no.” John futilely gestures with his free hand. “It’s—reality. Reality is setting in. I’m not...” He looks at the wall, its undecorated surface far less blank than Sherlock’s expression. John wets his lips with a dry tongue. “I don’t think I can do this.”  
  
“John, I’m handling it,” Sherlock says.  
  
“Can you just--” John’s voice breaks. “Just call emergency services.”  
  
“John, look at me,” Sherlock says.  
  
John looks.  
  
Implacable, insurmountable, Sherlock stares back. “I’m handling this.”  
  
“I’m going to die.”  
  
“Not yet.” Sherlock tosses John the muzzle.  
  
John catches it. It’s very... leather. “I’m going to die in bondage gear. Lovely.”  
  
“What were you expecting?”  
  
“Something a little more Hannibal Lecter,” John admits. When Sherlock frowns, John says, “ _Silence of the Lambs_? Fine, we can add that to the film list. I think you’d really...” Ah. Right. “Sorry, never mind.”  
  
“I’ll add it to the list,” Sherlock says. He walks to the opposite side of John’s bedside table and sets down the handcuff key with a  _click_. It’s just out of reach. “Do you have enough books up here?”  
  
John nods. He won’t be doing much reading.  
  
Sherlock takes a final look around the room. He takes a final look at John. “Stop thinking like that,” Sherlock says.  
  
“One of us has to.”  
  
“Wrong.” Arm outstretched, his body leaning away, Sherlock slides the key two inches closer to John. He vacates the room, shuts the door, and again bolts it shut.  
  
“Sherlock!” John yanks at the handcuff before thinking to grab the key.  
  
“I’m right here,” Sherlock says from behind the door.  
  
John can still see a spot of colour through the hole that once contained his doorknob. He fumbles with the cuffs and the key until finally freeing his wrist. Cursing, he stretches his arm. The return of sensation has him gritting his teeth, but he endures.  
  
“Toss the key out,” Sherlock instructs.  
  
“Would you give me a minute!”  
  
Sherlock heaves an impatient sigh. “Take your time, it’s only your odds of survival decreasing.”  
  
John doesn’t have any odds, but he keeps his mouth shut. He stands for the first time in a day, wobbles, and proceeds to the door. He drops the keys out. Sherlock catches them.  
  
“Could you break through this door?” Sherlock asks.  
  
“I don’t think so. Normally, but not like this.”  
  
“Try.”  
  
“Shut up and go save my life,” John says.  
  
Sherlock grunts, but he does as told. John resists the urge to crouch and watch through the hole as Sherlock climbs down the stairs. Once he hears Sherlock in the kitchen, he nearly calls out to ask if Sherlock can hear him, but if John can hear Sherlock’s chair scraping against the floor, then Sherlock would definitely be able to hear John shout.  
  
He can probably hear John pacing. He can probably read every ounce of panic from the tread of John’s step. John forces himself to sit at his desk. He shoves aside the two tests declaring him a dead man. Pen and paper, that’s all he needs now.  
  
He clicks the pen and sets to work.  
  
  
  
Once he finishes his will, he takes notes. When he can no longer withstand observations of his own body, he returns to bed. Tense, aching and exhausted, he sleeps. A fitful eon later, he muzzles himself, cuffs his hands behind his back, and offers Sherlock visual confirmation through the door hole. He retreats to the opposite wall and stands there as Sherlock leaves him dinner and a pair of water bottles. He only turns around once Sherlock bolts the door shut and tosses in the key. It takes some extremely awkward kneeling, but John manages to pick up the key. He unlocks the cuffs and returns the key to Sherlock. He removes the muzzle.  
  
“Hold on a tic,” John says. He fetches the notes and passes these out as well.  
  
“Flu-like symptoms,” Sherlock summarises.  
  
“No chills,” John says. “Just the aches and heat.”  
  
“And the exhaustion might be from last night.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Sherlock hums. “We’ll see. Eat and get some rest.”  
  
John sets his forehead against the door. The wood feels cool against his skin. Pleasant.  
  
“John?”  
  
“I’m fine.” He closes his eyes. “How much time do you think I have?”  
  
“The carrier was in an advanced stage of mental regression. I’ve only found three documented instances where a new vessel was introduced into an advanced group.”  
  
“Any help?”  
  
“No. The first two were put down immediately, a pair of idiots with emergency services who made mistakes. The third’s body was identified fifteen days after the initial infection.”  
  
“Also put down?”  
  
“Killed by the permanent host. Her situation doesn’t apply to you. You could have as many as five days before experiencing the urge to bite. The fever will settle in simultaneously.”  
  
John takes a deep breath. He lets it go. “I am a doctor, you know.”  
  
“You’re also an idiot,” Sherlock says, and John huffs a tiny laugh.  
  
Forcing himself away from the door, John picks up his dinner, searing plastic container and all. “Tell me you cleaned the microwave before you heated this.”  
  
“No, Mrs Hudson did. I’m not sure why.”  
  
“Jesus.” John lowers his voice. “I thought you were going to get her out of here.”  
  
“I am,” Sherlock says. “She leaves for a week, starting tomorrow.”  
  
“Where to?”  
  
“I called in a favour from an old client who owns a spa. I, of course, would never use the complimentary trip, but Mrs Hudson is delighted. She thinks you caught something at the clinic, so she won’t be coming up to say goodbye, as you need your rest.”  
  
That’s good. That’s sane. Mrs Hudson shouldn’t be anywhere near him. John tries to tell Sherlock this, but he can’t. The only words in his throat are _I didn’t get to say goodbye_ , and he can’t let them out.  
  
“She’ll have a fit when she sees what we’ve done to your door,” Sherlock says.  
  
“What _you’ve_  done to my door.”  
  
Sherlock sighs at this tedious distinction. “I’m going downstairs. Don’t shout for me until after eleven tomorrow morning, or Mrs Hudson might come up instead.”  
  
“Got it,” John tells the door.  
  
Sherlock leaves. The panic isn’t quite as bad this time. John takes new notes as he eats. His notes will be more valuable than his will, in the long run. He hopes so.  
  
  
  
He wakes sweating and dizzy, his legs trapped. He thrashes against the duvet only to cry out in a pained whimper. Fire blazes through his blood, against his bones. His skin ripples over muscle spasms.  
  
Slowly, against great pain, he pulls his legs free of the duvet. His pyjama bottoms cling to him, plastered to his shins and thighs. Rucked up to his armpits, his t-shirt is in a similar state.  
  
Exhaustion pulls his eyes shut. He lies in a damp spot of his own making, breathing steady lungfuls of cool air through his dry mouth. Where did he put those water bottles? They can’t be far.  
  
He doesn’t get up. Lying in the predawn darkness, he feels his heart beating, feels the gradual crawl of the searing heat. It inches down his thighs and worms into his left elbow. This is what it feels like to be converted into a habitat, a breeding ground. Terraforming, as if he were some science fiction planet.  
  
A giggle pops out of his mouth at the thought. Sapienforming.  
  
The blaze works its way down to the limits of his extremities. His right arm, though aching with tension from its time restrained, suffers no particular heat pain. It’s simply hot, like his chest, his head. He lifts his arm and forces his eyes open. He should change the bandage on the bite again. Or not. It doesn’t exactly matter anymore.  
  
His left hand finishes blazing before his legs do. Fire turns into glowing coal in his fingertips, but a furnace drags itself ever downward through his calves.  
  
He sits up and his room wobbles. Moving his legs tenderly over the side of his bed, he sets his skin against the metal bar of the bed frame. “Oh my God...” Bliss. So cold. Ice, he wants ice. Sherlock will get it for him if he shouts. Maybe he will. It’s worth a try, except it’s well before eleven and Mrs Hudson is still home.  
  
If she comes up, she’ll call emergency services. She’s good like that, practical. But John has burned through enough of the fever to see it to the end. The worst seems to have passed. The local pain isn’t so hot now. Maybe it’s converting him. Maybe he’s burning it out. Maybe he’s already gone mad and simply hasn’t noticed.  
  
He takes stock. He knows he’s dangerous. He knows he cannot be allowed access to anyone, lest he bite them. He knows his corpse cannot be left for Sherlock to manage alone. He knows he absolutely must not bleed on anything. Most of all, he knows Sherlock’s being an idiot.  
  
Temporarily assured of his sanity, John lies back until his legs are fit for walking, and then he downs both water bottles. He’s still so thirsty.  
  
  
  
The heat only worsens as the morning crawls toward noon. John strips down to his pants and lies on the wood of his floor, trying not to stick to anything. When Sherlock comes to check on him, John’s lying face down.  
  
“John? What are you doing?”  
  
John groans. “Hot. Bring ice.” His jaw feels like it needs to pop.  
  
After a small pause, Sherlock tromps down the stairs. John hears him at the freezer and listens to the returning footsteps. They sound irate. John grins a little. Not all the joys of life are gone yet.  
  
Sherlock forces two water bottles through the door hole first. They hit the floor and roll toward the foot of John’s bed. Ice follows, Sherlock feeding a bowlful through cube by cube. The ice clatters against the floor.  
  
As a matter of principle, John stands. He walks to the door, sits down, and sighs at the unspeakable pleasure of ice. It melts against his skin so quickly, and it burns so cold.  
  
“How far are you into the fever?” Sherlock asks. “Are the aches in your extremities localised?”  
  
“That stopped a few hours ago.”  
  
“Do you have a headache?”  
  
“No. Bit dizzy, though.” He works his jaw again.  
  
Sherlock crouches down on the other side of the door. They look at each other through their tiny window. “Anything else?”  
  
John shrugs. “Extreme tension, grinding my teeth while I sleep?”  
  
“Be more specific,” Sherlock instructs.  
  
John tries to be. He describes the pain, the heat, the ache, the sense of a wave crawling inexorably through his tissues and organs. He details his exhaustion, how he’s too tired to be bored. His mouth rapidly dries out.  
  
“You’re swaying,” Sherlock says.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You should lie down,” Sherlock says.  
  
John lies down. “Oh. That’s much better.”  
  
“More ice and water?”  
  
“God, yes.”  
  
Sherlock brings the water, liquid and frozen. John lies there and lets the ice cubes hit him. It feels like an odd sort of massage. He groans.  
  
“We should have locked me in the loo,” John says. “Climb into a cold bath and stay there.”  
  
“I could work on that,” Sherlock says. “Do you trust yourself enough to be transported?”  
  
“I--” He makes himself consider it. “No. No, actually. I should stay here. Is Mrs Hudson gone, then?”  
  
“We’ve seven days before she returns.”  
  
 _You’ve seven days_ , John doesn’t correct. “How long do I have, roughly? Jaw pain means I’ve reached the bite-or-burn stage, doesn’t it?”  
  
“Only if you want to bite someone.” Sherlock peers at him through the door, far enough back that John couldn’t so much as poke him in the nose. John sits up and leans close anyway. “Do you?” Sherlock asks.  
  
John runs his tongue over his teeth. He knows his canines are sharp, a bit nippy. Mucked up foreplay when he was a teen, his first girlfriend not quite as enthused as she’d imagined about biting. But that was only in play, without so much as breaking the surface. He imagines the jolt of pain beneath his mouth, imagines the taste of copper rising against his lips, and his stomach clenches terribly. “I don’t.”  
  
“Are you hungry?”  
  
“No. Maybe later. Drank too much water.”  
  
Sherlock nods. He stands and John’s view is now of his waist. “Shout if you need me.” He turns away.  
  
“Could you—um.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Nothing, it’s fine.”  
  
“John, it’s important that you tell me everything.”  
  
John swallows. He looks down and plays with the ice melting against his leg. Such a lovely, cold sting. Focus on that. “I know. It’s fine.”  
  
“John.”  
  
“Just make sure you’ll be able to hear me if I need you. That’s all.”  
  
“I will,” Sherlock promises in a shrunken voice. He clears his throat. “Obviously.”  
  
“Right, yeah.”  
  
Sherlock turns to go.  
  
“Wait!” John puts a hand on the door, abruptly dizzy despite his sitting position.  
  
Sherlock stops. “What?”  
  
“Did you solve the case? The smugglers.”  
  
“How else to keep Lestrade from poking his nose in here? I’ve taken care of everything. As far as he’s concerned, you’ve texted him with demands that I sleep before seeing to the paperwork. Also, you caught the flu four days ago and were nowhere near that building and never have been.”  
  
Alibis are well and good, but some things are more important. “You really haven’t slept for days. You’re not going to do either of us any good if you collapse.”  
  
“Are you going to sit there and point out the obvious all day, or shall I get around to saving your life?”  
  
“Sorry, right. By all means.”  
  
Sherlock returns downstairs. John lies down in the forming puddle, seeking all the comfort there he can find.  
  
  
  
The bucket stinks, John’s food can’t satisfy, and Sherlock has turned to the violin. He’s thinking. It’s good, of course, that Sherlock is thinking. A thinking Sherlock means a possibly living John. It means a less entirely dead Baker Street. Maybe a not-at-all-dead Baker Street. John can hope.  
  
When the ice puddle turns warm, John stands and towels himself off with a spare t-shirt. He mops up the puddle with the t-shirt and lies down with the wet cloth over his forehead. The violin plays on downstairs.  
  
John listens and aches. He should call Sherlock back up. He wants to. There isn’t a reason, not beyond abject terror. _Come sit in the hall, Sherlock. I’m scared._ John snorts. He closes his eyes and focuses on the music. He very nearly falls asleep on the floor. For a time, he drifts.  
  
The music stops.  
  
John sits up. He presses the side of his head against the door, his ear in the hole. He hears nothing.  
  
Then, with a groan of frustration, Sherlock must fling himself down on the sofa. That has to be what that sound is. Of course it is. John’s heard it a thousand times. Sherlock’s fine, he’s only lying down.  
  
John listens and waits, and his heart pounds out all other noises. He tries to whisper Sherlock’s name, but again, his mouth is too dry.  
  
His room wobbles less this time when he stands. He pulls on the damp t-shirt and it clings coolly to his skin. The edge of the doorknob hole is rough, and John’s fingers scrape around the outside. He tugs a little but the bolts hold fast. He holds tightly and listens.  
  
Downstairs, Sherlock doesn’t move. It was, what, four days on the case before Alexis? Six days for Sherlock, now. It’s been one hell of a week, and Sherlock is doubtlessly punishing his body for its fallible nature.  
  
The lack of noise continues from downstairs. John sits down in front of the door hole, his bare thighs sticking to the floor. He plucks at the t-shirt, pulling it away from his chest, but he isn’t so hot any longer. The fever has unmistakeably gone down.  
  
When listening to silence and staring at the hallway wall grow torturous, John stand and paces. With the fever reduced, exhaustion has waned. He’s been in this room for nearly two entire days, stuck with an increasingly full bucket of his piss and shit. Even with a lid on it, the smell affronts his senses.  
  
John fetches the handcuffs from his bedside table. He’s healthy enough for them now. He can lock them on and kneel to reach the key when Sherlock tosses it through. Yes, that should be all right.  
  
He brings the cuffs to the door. Staring at the wood, he registers that he left the muzzle. But of course he has: how else to call for Sherlock?  
  
He stands there and he does not call.  
  
Sherlock might be asleep, John reasons. If Sherlock has finally settled down for a piece of rest, John shouldn’t interrupt. That would be awful of him, calling Sherlock up simply to have the moment of company. Sherlock’s downstairs. That’s close enough.  
  
...Provided Sherlock  _is_ downstairs. John again sets his cheek against the door, his ear over the hole. Is Sherlock downstairs? He wouldn’t have left John. Not like this. Even that idiot knows better. Unless Lestrade summoned him.  
  
John waits and he waits, and the panic waits with him, crowding him and breathing down his neck. Sherlock’s supposed to help him. Sherlock can’t just  _leave_.  
  
Sherlock wouldn’t, John assures himself. He’s swanned off at horrifically inconvenient times before, but he wouldn’t do that now. For two years, even, but not now. John had heard him lie down on the sofa. Yes, John had heard him.  
  
More waiting, more fretting, and surely Sherlock was meant to bring him dinner by  _now_.  
  
Something’s wrong.  
  
John stares at the door, glares at it, and his eyes fall on the hinges. He takes the handcuffs and sets one edge of the metal against the middle hinge, against the peg holding it together. John pushes, he shoves, he works it up and up, and the peg moves with a metallic shriek.  
  
John freezes. He listens. When no sound comes from downstairs, John paces back to his bed, pulls out the shoebox, and retrieves his lube. He greases the middle peg and pushes once more. This slide gives a squeak, not a scream, and then John holds a slippery bit of metal in one hand. He puts this down on his desk.  
  
The bottom pin takes slightly longer but ultimately gives way to his efforts. Held up by the top hinge alone, the door sags in its frame. The weight of the door pinches the hinge pin into place. John stuffs a paperback under the bottom of the door, and that helps even it a bit. He stands on his desk chair for a better angle. His hands redden from exertion with his makeshift tool, from the friction and innumerable accidental pinches.  
  
He frees the final pin. He holds his hands up, ready to catch the door, but the door does not fall on him. The bolts are still in place.  
  
With a quiet step, he comes down from his chair. He sets down the lube and the pins. He tries to wipe the lube off on his thighs, but that simply makes everything worse. He mops himself up with yet another t-shirt and pulls on a pair of trousers. Hot, but not stifling. He sticks the handcuffs into his front trouser pocket. He’s not supposed to be without them when the door is open.  
  
Gripping the door by the middle hinge and the empty doorknob hole, he eases the door side to side, working outward. He couldn’t have pried the bolts off by pulling the door inward, but as he pushes the hinge-side of the door out into the hall, the bolts on the doorknob side begin to work their way free. His fingers strain and ache. Forward and to the side, forward and to the side, that’s it.  
  
The door slips free.  
  
Gently, John eases his toes under the bottom of the door. He walks it forward one tiny step at a time, easing forward until he’s in the hall. With infinite care, he leans the door against the opposite wall. Now he can check on Sherlock without waking him.  
  
He pads down the hall and takes his care with the stairs. He knows how the third one creaks in the centre, but not on the edges. He knows how the fifth one down can never be silent. Barefoot, he steps down onto the hall by the kitchen. The door to the kitchen is closed, but the one to the sitting room gives John a peek at Sherlock’s chaotic research. Papers and printouts strewn across the room, taped to the mirror, bits of them circled and highlighted and linked together by proximity.  
  
The door opens smoothly beneath John’s hand. John cranes his neck, and yes, a flop of dark hair languishes on the sofa arm.  
  
The ache in John’s shoulders, the tension in his arms, his legs, his every inch; this fades. He’s not alone.  
  
Sherlock isn’t in a particularly good state, he discovers. His hair falls in greasy clumps. Arms wrapped about the Union Jack pillow, Sherlock curls in on himself, the stubborn lines of his body warped into an agonised curve. His chest rises and falls, pushing weakly against the cage of his arms.  
  
It’s probably his first sleep in days. Possibly his first this week. The idiot.  
  
No sign of food on the coffee table. John takes a few steps and peers into the kitchen. No sign of dishes in the sink. John shakes his head. Upon closer inspection of Sherlock’s sofa-turned-nest, he has the paper bin closer than usual. No food wrappers in there, but many more tissues than John would expect.  
  
 _Take a shower,_  John wants to tell him.  _Eat something._  But Sherlock wouldn’t be happy to see John outside his room, so John won’t wake him. Sherlock’s a sound sleeper anyway. After a case, he sleeps better than a corpse.  
  
He stands in the sitting room, uncertain of what to do. It’s after dinner. He ought to eat. He checks through the kitchen and there’s nothing appetizing. Can’t go out to eat, can’t leave Sherlock when he’s like this. He can’t call for takeaway, as Sherlock’s taken all the phones.  
  
The phones. Yes. Of course that’s what John came downstairs for. He needs one of their mobiles. Emergency services.  
  
He sneaks into Sherlock’s bedroom first. He tries the drawers. He mucks up Sherlock’s sock index just for the hell of it. As silently as possible, he checks everywhere he can think to look, and when living with Sherlock, that’s a very large number of places. He finds his gun, but that’s not what he needs. He puts it back under Sherlock’s bed.  
  
The bedroom exhausted, John returns to the sitting room. Immediately, he sees his mistake. There, on Sherlock’s armchair, is Sherlock’s jacket. Keeping a close eye on his sleeping flatmate, John crosses to the chair. He lifts the jacket and searches through.  _There_. He wraps his hand around the mobile, but something’s off.  
  
John pulls it out with a frown. Sherlock’s battery is missing.  
  
He pockets this mobile, setting it in the pocket free of handcuffs. Another search through the jacket yields John’s mobile, also without battery.  
  
Where could Sherlock have hidden the batteries? More accurately phrased, where  _couldn’t_ Sherlock have hidden them?  
  
John studies Sherlock, lying in his protective curl around the pillow. John’s seen flounces and sulks before, but this is the highest he’s ever seen Sherlock’s knees pulled up. His limbs form a barricade in front of his chest.  
  
Maybe the batteries aren’t scattered through the room. Maybe they’re with the handcuff key in Sherlock’s front trouser pocket.  
  
His approach is quiet. His hands are steady. John shifts the papers on the coffee table, medical papers detailing the withdrawal process. He sits down and simply looks. He lets their breathing sync.  
  
His head toward the door, Sherlock lies facing John. His right pocket might be within reach, but definitely not his left.  
  
John stands. He sets his left hand against the wall. The angle prevents him from approaching Sherlock’s pocket with his dominant hand. Watching Sherlock’s face, John lowers his right hand. Bit awkward, but he touches his fingertips to the top of Sherlock’s thigh and, yes, that’s a metal rectangle.  
  
Beneath his eyelids, Sherlock’s eyes move. John keeps his hand steady until the motion ends.  
  
He eases two fingers into Sherlock’s pocket. The slide down is slow and tight, his knuckles against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock’s foot twitches and his knee bumps against John’s.  
  
Again, John freezes.  
  
Sherlock adjusts, pulling John’s hand with his hips as he settles against the sofa cushions. John rides the motion as well as he can, but not well enough to prevent Sherlock’s elbow from hitting his bare forearm.  
  
John stares at a pair of closed eyes, at a smoothly rising and falling chest, and yet he knows Sherlock just woke up. He makes a quick grab for the battery—he’s buggered anyway—but Sherlock rolls onto his back and catches John’s wrist in one smooth motion. His skin is so cool. It feels the way fresh water tastes.  
  
“John,” Sherlock says softly. His frown gives way to a sigh. “ _Hinges_.”  
  
“You okay?” John asks.  
  
The frown returns. Sherlock nods, his hair scraping against the sofa arm. “Fine.”  
  
John sits down on the sofa, setting the small of his back against Sherlock’s legs. His left hand drops to Sherlock’s hip. John sticks his thumb into Sherlock’s empty belt loop.  
  
As fluid and natural as any stretch, Sherlock presses against the sofa, into it. “Go upstairs, John.”  
  
John shakes his head.  
  
“Why not?” Sherlock asks.  
  
“I shouldn’t be alone like this.”  
  
“Then I’ll sit in the hall,” Sherlock promises.  
  
John doesn’t move.  
  
“We’re going to go upstairs,” Sherlock tells him. “Together, the both of us.”  
  
“It’s much cooler down here,” John says.  
  
Sherlock touches his arm. “You’re feverish.”  
  
John leans into the cool touch.  
  
Sherlock’s breathing hitches and John tenses in an instant. He stares at the door, at the stairs, and he positions his body over Sherlock’s in a protective crouch.  
  
“John,” Sherlock says, voice strained.  
  
“Are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
“I’m fine--”  
  
“But are you?” John demands.  
  
Sherlock looks between John’s hands and his mouth. Sherlock’s pulse visibly beats in his neck. It’s racing. It shouldn’t be racing, not if Sherlock is fine. “John, will you do something for me?”  
  
“Yeah.” John nods. “Yeah, of course.”  
  
“Will you go upstairs with me?”  
  
John tilts his head.  
  
“I should clean up that bucket,” Sherlock explains. “I’d like help. Would you do that for me, John?”  
  
“It’s a lot of fuss over shit and piss.”  
  
“But will you?”  
  
John nods, only because of Sherlock’s pleading expression. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” He sets his hand on Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock flinches. “You’re like ice.”  
  
“No, you’re burning.”  
  
“I was burning before,” John says. “Not now.”  
  
“Please go upstairs with me.”  
  
“You don’t look all right to me.” Pulse too rapid, skin too cool and pale, breathing too shallow. “Are you sure?”  
  
“I’ll be fine once I know you’re safe upstairs,” Sherlock says. “I promise.” His eyes sharp beneath John’s hand, he watches John closely. “I’m going to sit up now.”  
  
John returns his hand to Sherlock’s hip.  
  
Sliding against the sofa back, Sherlock sits up in the oddest way John has ever seen. Belatedly, John realises he’s crowding Sherlock. That’s it. Sherlock and his absurdly long legs, that’s all.  
  
“John, can you bring me my jacket?”  
  
“Yeah, okay.” John stands and fetches it. “Not surprised you’re feeling cold.”  
  
Sherlock also stands. Sherlock holds out his hand.  
  
John gives him the jacket.  
  
Sherlock puts the jacket on and reaches into the pocket where the mobiles were. His expression sticks, not quite frozen, not quite shuttering. “Could you go upstairs in front and make sure the door doesn’t fall on me?”  
  
“It’s fine,” John swears. “You’re safe.” He doesn’t move. Why move? They’re fine here.  
  
“I’ll be upstairs,” Sherlock says. He steps toward the door, toward the staircase, toward  _leaving_ and he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be doing that, so John stops him. John grabs him around the middle, the tightest hug they’ve ever shared, and Sherlock slams his elbow into John’s side. John exhales harshly, his body bends, but it barely hurts.  
  
Letting Sherlock leave,  _that_ would hurt. That can’t happen. If Sherlock left, John would just die. He would, he would curl up and die.  
  
Instead, John kicks him in the legs, right behind the knee, and he secures Sherlock to the floor with the full weight of his body. “It’s okay,” John tries to explain. “Sherlock, trust me, it’s fine.”  
  
Sherlock thrashes. Poor, exhausted Sherlock. He lashes out at John’s face. The exertion warms, but in a good way.  
  
Straddling Sherlock’s torso, John catches Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock drags it back, pulls his own elbow to the ground and nearly frees his hand from John’s grip, but John follows, John follows him down and sets his mouth to the scalpel’s scab. He bites and he licks and Sherlock’s only making that noise because he doesn’t understand yet.  
  
Flesh punctures between John’s teeth, pale, veined skin bunched by his mouth on the back of Sherlock’s hand. A trickle of heat touches John’s tongue. Oh,  _God_. It’s everything he never knew he was waiting for.  
  
He bites deeper, sucks harder. Sherlock’s other hand beats against the side of John’s head, but feebly. Sherlock must be so tired.  
  
Slowly, Sherlock learns this is for the best. He holds still and lets John lick the bite clean. He lies on his back with his free hand over his eyes. John applies pressure with his tongue until the bleeding stops, more or less. John feels so much cooler already. He licks his lips, unsure if he’s tasting blood or bliss.  
  
“I’ll bandage that,” John promises. “It’s okay, I’m taking care of you.”  
  
Mouth firmly shut, eyes covered, Sherlock says nothing at all.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If the content triggers you or is otherwise detrimental to your mental health, please stop reading. You are more important.

The floor hard on his knees, John sits on Sherlock’s stomach, rising and falling incrementally with Sherlock’s breaths. Though Sherlock’s pulse visibly throbs at his neck, Sherlock’s breathing is relatively slow.  
  
“You’re trying to calm down,” John pieces together.  
  
Sherlock nods, his unmarked hand still over his eyes. His lips remain pressed together.  
  
“It’s okay,” John says.  
  
Sherlock swallows. “I know.” He lifts his hand and turns it over, his palm upward in a command. “Phone.”  
  
Unthinking, John digs into his trouser pocket. He very nearly puts the mobile in Sherlock’s hand.  
  
“Please,” Sherlock adds, voice firm. He looks up at John with clear eyes. Stress and exhaustion line his face, the bags under his eyes like bruises, and yet Sherlock radiates control.  
  
John scrambles off him. His leg strikes the coffee table, and with windmilling arms, he falls backward onto the sofa. John’s mobile remains clutched in his hand.  
  
Stiffly, Sherlock climbs to his feet. He follows John and sits on the coffee table. “This was the deal, John,” he says, his words even and slow as if speaking to a particularly thick client. “If I couldn’t contain you, we would call emergency services.”  
  
“But I was going to...” John trails off, a mental weight lifting and a moral one descending. “Oh. Oh, God.” He drops the mobile on the sofa and grabs Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock flinches but doesn’t pull away. John inspects the damage. “I bit you. Jesus fuck. I broke the skin.”  
  
Sherlock leans forward, his left hand retrieving John’s mobile. “It’s happened, and now we have to call.” Leaning back on the coffee table, Sherlock manages to slide his bleeding hand into his tight trouser pocket. He winces but persists. The first battery he pulls out is the wrong one.  
  
“That’s what I thought I was doing,” John says. “I swear. Sherlock, I promise I thought I was going to call.”  
  
Sherlock slots the correct battery into the mobile. “We’re calling now.”  
  
“I just killed you.” The words literally taste of Sherlock’s blood. John needs to wash his mouth out. No, more. John needs to go back in time and tear himself limb from limb.  
  
“Don’t bother me with your guilt. Consider it my last request, if that will keep you from sulking.”  
  
“I came down to get help, and then I...” The memory floats past him, through him, vague and dreamlike. “I wouldn’t even have gone for you if you hadn’t—what are you doing?”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You wanted to call and now I’m calling.” John’s mobile lets out its usual chime as it turns on.  
  
“Why were the batteries in your pocket?” John asks. “You never turn your phone off. What were you doing with your phone off?” He reaches for the mobile. “Do you mind? You’re the carrier now, I should be calling.”  
  
“I’m closer to lucidity,” Sherlock says. “Though you are returning to it more rapidly than expected.”  
  
“‘Expected’,” John repeats. He watches blankly as Sherlock’s thumb presses on the number pad, and he grabs Sherlock’s hand with both of his. John’s mobile lets out a series of beeps as it hits nine again and again, Sherlock tries to pull away, and John holds fast. “Fucking hell, Sherlock, you  _knew_ this would happen!”  
  
“There was a possibility you would get out, but it’s sooner than I’d thought.” He twists his hand away, giving John the phone. “Fine. You call. It’s what you came down here for, isn’t it?”  
  
“You let me kill you. You just...” John stares at his phone in one hand and, with the other, touches Sherlock’s dead mobile in his pocket. “Sherlock, that’s insane.”  
  
Sitting on the coffee table, Sherlock meets John’s gaze without hesitation or guilt or shame, or any other non-Sherlockian emotion. He is, by a very strange standard of normal, still normal. “Make the call, John.”  
  
“Tell me--” John turns his head to the side. He looks up at the ceiling and blinks until his eyes can be trusted not to leak. He clears his throat. “Look, just tell me why you didn’t do anything about the hinges. You can’t have overlooked that. You could’ve nailed a plank down, or, or anything.”  
  
“You’re stalling.” Sherlock leans forward. “You’ll go into withdrawal before I lose lucidity, John. Once that happens, neither of us will call.”  
  
“Tell me.”  
  
“I’ll tell you once you call.”  
  
John turns his mobile off. He tucks it onto his pocket alongside the handcuffs and switches his grip to the cuffs. “Then there is a reason.”  
  
“John.” Sherlock grips him by the shoulders. “Your mind has been compromised. I will explain, but we cannot delay. Call first.”  
  
With a forceful shrug, John shakes off Sherlock’s hands. “You mean, I’m going to hate the reason.”  
  
“I mean, you’ve become a human incubator and an increasingly large part of you is going to try to stay that way. Call now, or give me my mobile back.”  
  
John grits his teeth. “I’m not—fine. Fine.”  
  
Sherlock holds his left hand out, his right hand resting on his knee and bleeding.  
  
John whips the cuffs out and goes for Sherlock’s left arm first. Sherlock resists, but then, he would. John shoves forward and they topple over the coffee table together. Sherlock lands hard on his back, John again straddling him. Sherlock thrashes, flinging his right hand as far away from John as he can. Lunging forward, John jerks Sherlock’s left arm up to the metal bar on Sherlock’s armchair. Sherlock tries to shout and John promptly punches him in the solar plexus.  
  
Winded, Sherlock curls in on himself involuntarily. He makes a rattling, gasping noise somewhat like John’s name. John locks the other cuff tight, securing Sherlock to the side of the armchair. He pats down Sherlock’s pockets immediately after and retrieves the handcuff key. Panting, John kneels on the floor while Sherlock thrashes. Sherlock keeps trying to shout without air.  
  
In a very simple solution, John sticks his fingers into Sherlock’s mouth. “Go ahead. Bite me.”  
  
Sherlock immediately opens his mouth as wide as he can. Chest heaving, he breathes through his nose.  
  
“...Okay,” John says, mentally adjusting to the sensation of Sherlock’s breath and tongue on his fingers. Sherlock doesn’t feel cold anymore, or maybe it’s John that doesn’t feel hot. “You don’t want to bite me. It’s too soon for you to be able to transfer it, but... you want to be the carrier when we call. Why?”  
  
Rolling his eyes, Sherlock makes a sarcastic noise around John’s fingers.  
  
John removes his hand and wipes it on his trousers.  
  
“There’s always a chance it could be lost in transfer,” Sherlock says. “That’s why I let you bite me. That’s all.”  
  
“And then I’d die of withdrawal,” John says. “Now it’s both of us dead. That’s a terrible plan.”  
  
Sherlock shrugs.  
  
“If it could be lost in transfer, bite me. Doesn’t matter.” John reaches for Sherlock’s mouth a second time and Sherlock turns his head away. Impossibly early for risk of transfer, and still this. “...Right. You do want to be the carrier. Why?”  
  
Sherlock doesn’t answer.  
  
Knees aching, John stands.  
  
Sherlock watches him from the floor. “Are you going to call now?”  
  
“Give me a minute,” John says. He looks around. “Where’s my laptop?”  
  
“John, you can write your final goodbyes  _after_ calling.”  
  
“Never mind, I see it.” Barefoot, John pads into the kitchen. His laptop’s fan whirrs on the table. He watches his screensaver for a moment, a new photo of his army mates and civilian acquaintances being added to a digital pile every five seconds. Shaking his head, he taps the touchpad.  
  
His investigation takes only moments. It helps that Sherlock left the tabs open. “Oh.” John reads.  
  
A screeching noise of metal on wood distracts John for only a moment. In response, John unplugs his laptop and goes to the stairs. He stands in the landing, still reading. In the time John takes to finish, Sherlock manages to lug his armchair to the sitting room door.  
  
“John, we can’t wait,” Sherlock insists, possibly more out of breath than before.  
  
“Because surviving withdrawal from the first round of incubation might be possible?” John pulls the laptop lid halfway down to better glare at Sherlock. “Oh, lovely! A doctor in Argentina’s managed it  _twice_! Did you even read the study, Sherlock? She lost over ninety-eight percent of her patients!”  
  
“Except for the two who began treatment within an hour of their first time biting someone,” Sherlock counters. “And she kept seventy-three percent of patients alive, on average, ten hours longer than previously thought possible. Her methods are in the process of being adopted by all major hospitals for early cases. Now  _call_.”  
  
John snaps his laptop shut. Keeping out of Sherlock’s reach, he stomps toward Sherlock’s bedroom. He finds Sherlock’s laptop quickly enough and returns to the landing. In John’s short absence, Sherlock wedged his armchair in the doorframe and is now apparently bent on dislocating his arm or simply his hand. John bats Sherlock’s straining arm away and climbs up the stairs. He puts both laptops on the upper landing and leaves the mobiles on top of them.  
  
“John? John, what are you doing? We’ve only half an hour left!”  
  
John shakes his head.  
  
“John, I am  _dying_ for this!” Sherlock shouts. “Call them  _now_!”  
  
“No,” John says. “When you bite me back, then I’ll call.”  
  
Sherlock blanches from pale to ashen. He stops tugging at the handcuffs. “You can’t be serious.”  
  
“I fucked up with Alexis,” John says. “I die. You don’t.”  
  
“Don’t be tedious.”  
  
John shakes his head.  
  
Sherlock frowns.  
  
John shucks his t-shirt.  
  
Sherlock’s frown deepens.  
  
A small scuffle occurs. It ends with John’s t-shirt twisted into a thick rope and forced between Sherlock’s teeth. John holds fast, his chest pressed against Sherlock’s back, Sherlock pressed against the hallway wall. The handcuff anchors Sherlock’s left arm to the chair, forcing Sherlock to stoop and compromising his centre of gravity. Gagged and with only one arm to fight with, Sherlock takes far too long to stop struggling, but at least he’s quiet about it.  
  
Straining his ears, John doesn’t hear anything from the adjacent apartment. Mrs Turner’s married ones are much too accustomed to the noise of Sherlock’s experiments to become worried now.  
  
“I don’t need to hold you for a day,” John says. “You’re hoping I’m too stupid to see that, but I’m not. Thirty minutes, Sherlock. Then I’m dead, no question about it, and we’ll put you through the withdrawal treatment.”  
  
Sherlock beats his head against the wall, a loud, percussive thump. Stunned, John watches the first impact, the second, and then he thinks to prevent the third, yanking back on this t-shirt with both hands like reins to a horse’s bit. Despite the horrifically awkward angle, John manages it. Sherlock chokes.  
  
John kicks him in the back of each knee. Sherlock goes down, hard, and John maintains his grip on the t-shirt all the way. “None of that, you arse. Someone has to save you from yourself, and, like it or not, that’s me.”  
  
More thrashing. More groaning. John rams his good shoulder against Sherlock’s spine and keeps him pinned against the wall in a kneeling position.  
  
“I’d rather kill myself than you, do you understand me?” John demands. “I’ve seen you die once and I am  _never_ seeing that again, you hear me? I put up with so much of your shit, you arrogant prick. I am  _not_ putting up with that.”  
  
Via his nose, Sherlock responds with a disdainful sigh.  
  
“You’re an idiot,” John tells him. “You shot Alexis on sight, but God forbid we call emergency services on me.”  
  
Sherlock slaps his foot against the landing. John presses him harder against the wall, forcing Sherlock’s other arm tight against his back.  
  
“You’re going to behave yourself now,” John continues. “Because I’m dead, Sherlock. These are my final hours and they might be yours too, so you are going to shut the hell up, and you are  _not_ going to call until you bite me, and you are  _not_ going to die.”  
  
Gagged, cuffed, Sherlock’s struggles amount to little more than tense twitching. John holds him fast anyway.  
  
  
  
“Bored,” Sherlock whinges. He flops this way and that in his armchair, still tethered.  
  
John doesn’t look away from the telly. “You’re going to hurt yourself, doing that.”  
  
Sherlock snorts. “Says the man who practically tore my arms off.”  
  
John turns the volume up higher. Late night talk shows prattle on about things John doesn’t much care about.  
  
“Is this really how you want to spend your final hours?” Sherlock asks. “Five hours into untreated withdrawal, you might have as long as two days left.”  
  
“I have less than a day left,” John corrects.  
  
“I refuse to bite you,” Sherlock says.  
  
“We’ll see how you feel in a couple hours.” The programme goes to adverts. John can feel his eyes glaze over.  
  
“We should have a film night,” Sherlock says. Hunched in his chair, he hugs his knees with his right arm and tilts to his left. His eyes are lost where hair turns to shadow on his face. “We can marathon the list. It’s hardly as if we have any other plans.”  
  
“We wouldn’t even get through  _Star Wars_.” On the other hand, no adverts. Also,  _Star Wars_. It’d give Sherlock something else to complain about, at least.  
  
“You want me to watch them, and I am not watching them without you. Now or never, John.”  
  
John crosses his arms and pretends to mull it over. “Do we have any popcorn?”  
  
“I haven’t touched your stash since the last time,” Sherlock says, naturally omitting which  _last time_  he’s referring to.  
  
Rolling his eyes, John abandons his armchair and blanket to walk briskly into the kitchen. “Is the microwave safe?”  
  
“Should be.”  
  
Not exactly comforting, but John leaves it running and heads upstairs for socks and a jumper. Sherlock eyes him oddly upon his return.  
  
“How can you bear it? It’s stifling in here,” Sherlock complains.  
  
“It gets cold at night, Sherlock.” John settles back into his pocket of warmth, pulling his blanket over his legs. “That whole bit where we turn away from the sun for a few hours?”  
  
Sherlock glares at him before attempting an ill-fated flop. He groans and favours his arm, but John bets on frustration as the cause. “If anyone should be snippy, it ought to be the one handcuffed to a chair.”  
  
“Nope,” John says, listening to the popcorn pop. “It should be the one dying.”  
  
With a wrinkled nose and disdainful eyes, Sherlock stands, manoeuvres around the armrest, and whips the blanket off John’s lap.  
  
“Oi!”  
  
Sherlock immediately plunks himself back down into his chair and bundles the blanket up as best he can with one arm. He hunches around the blanket sullenly.  
  
“Right then,” John says. “No popcorn for you.”  
  
John’s resolve lasts nearly twenty minutes into the film. Ultimately, he drags his chair next to Sherlock’s, effectively pinning Sherlock’s arm between the furniture. He sets the bowl over the gap between their armrests. Sherlock sighs and passes back John’s blanket. “It was too hot anyway,” Sherlock complains.  
  
Unthinking, John reaches out and touches Sherlock’s forehead. “Bit warm. Don’t think it’s the fever yet. Do you have any aches?”  
  
“All my free limbs are fine, thank you. Pleasingly mobile.”  
  
John lowers his hand with a sigh. “Arse.”  
  
“My arse is also fine.”  
  
John giggles and nudges the popcorn bowl closer to Sherlock. Beside him, Sherlock chews obnoxiously loudly. He chomps away until there’s another spot of dialogue, and then he promptly talks over it.  
  
God, John will miss this. Or not. Death’s like that, he supposes.  
  
Sherlock kicks him in the leg.  
  
John promptly takes the popcorn back. “Oi, what?”  
  
“Stop thinking like that.”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
Sherlock simply looks at him. His face is a bruised shadow.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” John says, and he starts talking about the film instead. Sherlock even pretends to listen.  
  
  
  
John jolts awake, clapping his hand to his neck. Though he makes his heavy armchair jump beneath him, there’s no point: he’s not bleeding. Sherlock hasn’t bitten him yet. That might hurt less than sleeping in his chair. Jesus, that’s painful.  
  
“Stop kicking,” Sherlock groans.  
  
Squinting through the light of the telly, John makes out Sherlock’s shape on the floor. Sherlock’s trousers blend in well enough with the shadows, but he’s shucked his shirt as much as possible. His pale back looks like a cross between moonlight and radioactive milk.  
  
John moves his feet. “What are you doing down there?”  
  
“It’s cooler.”  
  
With some contorting, John bends down and nearly touches Sherlock’s back. He doesn’t need to. Like so much sweat, heat pours off Sherlock, much more than is remotely safe.  
  
“Water and ice,” John promises, standing.  
  
“Don’t go.”  
  
“I’m only going into the kitchen.”  
  
Sherlock props his head up on his right arm. “You can’t leave me alone like this.”  
  
“I’m not leaving. I’m right here.” John hesitates between the kitchen doors before returning and putting the next DVD in. “See? Still film night.”  
  
“Tired,” Sherlock whinges.  
  
“Do you hurt yet? Like it’s pushing into your extremities?”  
  
Sherlock makes a low moan of what can only be pained agreement.  
  
“...Okay,” John decides. “I’m going to unlock you. You can sprawl on the sofa, you’ll be more comfortable.”  
  
Another groan.  
  
“While you decide on that, I’ll get you water. I’m right here. Not going anywhere.”  
  
“I know that. Rationally.”  
  
“Makes you nervous, doesn’t it?”  
  
Sherlock makes a sound that John hopes is a laugh. Watching Sherlock’s fake tears on a case is bad enough. Real ones might do John’s head in.  
  
When he returns to Sherlock with a glass, John forces Sherlock to sit upright and finds Sherlock’s face reassuringly dry. Excluding the sweat. The sweat is worrying, but as long as he still has water left to sweat, it could be worse.  
  
“Drink,” John urges. “It’ll feel cold, c’mon.”  
  
After the first reluctant sip, Sherlock begins to chug despite John’s instructions not to. He finishes with a gasp and immediately passes the glass back to John. “More.”  
  
John claps him on the shoulder and stands. Night blurs into morning as John tends to Sherlock. With the creeping sunlight, there follows the tiniest rise in temperature. John is thankful, though Sherlock is decidedly not. Somewhere in there, John transfers Sherlock to the sofa. John nods off in his armchair a second time, and when he wakes, Sherlock has stripped down to his briefs.  
  
“John,” Sherlock rasps.  
  
“Coming.” John wobbles as he stands, his head pounding. More water for Sherlock and another damp cloth. John makes a token attempt to hydrate as well.  
  
Sprawled for maximum surface area, Sherlock groans. “Hurts.”  
  
“I know.” Keeping his hand above Sherlock’s skin, John feels the heat radiating off Sherlock’s back and arm. Warmth surges into burning heat over Sherlock’s forearm. “Here?”  
  
Sherlock nods into the sofa cushion.  
  
“And it’s about hit your knees, too?”  
  
Another nod, this one with an accompanying whimper.  
  
“Okay. I’m going to try something.” He fetches another glass and fills it with the last of the ice. This, he places on the coffee table. He cups his hands around it before slowly laying his palm on Sherlock’s arm.  
  
Sherlock groans, a sound of pure relief.  
  
John starts a gentle massage, periodically cooling his hands. He begins to shiver, but Sherlock doesn’t. “I’ll be right back,” he promises. “No, I will be, it’s okay.” He works his wrist free from Sherlock’s trembling grip. “Shh, it’s all right.”  
  
“Don’t go.”  
  
“I’m getting a jumper. Just going upstairs.”  
  
Sherlock shakes his head against the sofa cushion, but John hurries off anyway. It’s fucking freezing in here and the ice isn’t helping. He comes back wearing his thickest socks and two jumpers over a button-down and a t-shirt. Still a bit nippy, but not so bitter cold as a minute ago.  
  
At the sight of John returning, Sherlock flops off the sofa in an ill-fated attempt to stand. He lies where he lands, his head toward John, one foot under the coffee table. Lying on his back with sweat-soaked pants, he’s practically giving John the full frontal.  
  
“You usually have a sheet when you’re sprawling about naked,” John says. “Never thought I’d say this, but I miss the sheet.”  
  
“Ugh, hot.” Sherlock gestures vaguely toward the cup on the coffee table. “Do my legs, they’re unbearable.”  
  
John rolls his eyes but circles around the table and helps the little he can. His calves tinge in sympathy as he kneels, muscle memory of the inferno too fresh to ignore. “Can’t use too much ice. If you start shivering, that’ll only raise your core temperature.”  
  
“I  _know_. I’m not an idiot.”  
  
“Yes you are.” He works his hands against taut muscle and overheated skin. It’s not John’s area of expertise, but a patient is a patient and John can finish his life with at least  _some_  professional pride. Gradually, Sherlock’s tension eases until muscle can be distinguished from bone. That’s all Sherlock is, bone and skin and trembling fever. They’ll need more than a damp cloth and some ice for this. “I’m going to draw you a bath before I freeze my hands off.”  
  
“Such a good cold,” Sherlock argues sleepily. Much better.  
  
“You’ll have more of it soon,” John promises. “Give me a mo’. I’ll drag you over once I get the tap running.”  
  
“I can get up,” Sherlock says without moving.  
  
“Can you?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Again, John leaves the human lump known as Sherlock Holmes. When he returns, Sherlock has successfully rolled onto his stomach. The effort involved may have killed him.  
  
“Transport failing me, John,” Sherlock complains. “It’s unfair.”  
  
“You poor git. C’mon, up we go.” John doesn’t quite drag Sherlock down the hall. He doesn’t exactly drop Sherlock in the bath and he doesn't quite drown him, but those are very pleasant mental images to consider.  
  
  
  
John shakes and shivers while Sherlock sighs. Seated on the toilet with the lid down, John straightens his back. His spine pops. He returns to his hunch immediately after. If the water in the tub weren’t lukewarm, John might have been able to glean some heat from it. Not that the relative chill stops Sherlock’s complaints.  
  
“I’m boiling alive,” Sherlock tells him, his absolute seriousness rivalling a toddler’s.  
  
“Well, I’m not,” John snaps. He keeps his eyes on the closed loo door. In order to submerge his giraffe-scale limbs, Sherlock has folded his legs in the tub and thereby put his crotch on prominent display. Army experience or not, John can’t talk in the loo if someone else’s cock is out. They are two men in a loo, not a locker room. If John had to piss, that would be one thing, but this is another.  
  
“It’s annoying, watching you freeze,” Sherlock says. “Go away.”  
  
“If I cuff you in the tub, you could have an accident.” He could sit outside, but there’s too much risk to that. In a loo, there are many other means for Sherlock to intentionally end his life if Sherlock’s still convinced there’s a chance John will survive withdrawal.  
  
Sherlock sloshes a bit. “Then don’t cuff me. When I want to bite you, I’ll come.”  
  
“I’ll sit in the hall.”  
  
“You realise you need to stay alive until I bite you, correct? Go to bed.”  
  
The thought of blankets, of nesting in a pile of warmth, compels John to stand. “And you won’t go outside?”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Not even downstairs.”  
  
John leaves the cold loo and staggers upstairs past his removed door. His second thoughts only occur once the duvet covers him to the chin. Curling up into a quivering puddle distracts him from any further thoughts. He shifts uncomfortably before pulling the cuffs and mobiles out of his pockets. These go on his bedside table.  
  
Shaking and trembling despite his layers, he waits. Time passes. The chill worsens. John’s stomach rumbles, and though he can think of food—of steaming soup and toasted bread—he can’t bear leaving the shelter of his bed. This isn’t what dying felt like, the last time. A bullet really would have been kinder.  
  
Downstairs, pipes gurgle as the tub drains. Please let that be the tub draining. John pulls the duvet over his head, tucking himself entirely within his cloth cocoon. Arms wrapped tight about himself, he strains his ears for any sound beyond the quaking of his clothing against bed sheets.  
  
The air grows hot and humid between his face and the duvet. His skin warms while his core freezes. When he can muster the energy to move, he scratches at his stubble.  
  
Footsteps pad up the stairs and John stops scratching. “...Sh-Sherlock?” His teeth chatter.  
  
The floor creaks as Sherlock navigates around the leaning door. “It’s all right,” Sherlock tells him, voice deep and rough even through the duvet. “I know how to take care of you now.” Sherlock approaches the bed. He settles on the edge, his heat blazing through so many layers.  
  
Sherlock tugs back the duvet, sending a burst of cold air and harsh light against John’s face. The sticky sweet scent of infection clings to Sherlock’s skin. John’s mouth waters. His hair in wet, curling clumps, his body unabashedly naked, Sherlock watches him in turn.  
  
“Please,” John whispers.  
  
Nodding, Sherlock sets his hands along the sides of John’s neck. Sherlock blazes. John gasps as heat presses its way inward, emanating from Sherlock’s touch but still unable to reach John’s frozen core.  
  
“Christ, you’re so hot.” John reaches, touches, the backs of his hands lost to chill while his palms bask against skin. He pulls Sherlock close, or Sherlock tumbles onto him, or Sherlock drags John against himself; only the result matters.  
  
Sherlock presses his face into the ice of John’s throat. John melts. He trembles in anticipation of true heat, but Sherlock doesn’t bite him. John writhes for it and Sherlock only nips. In an ineffectual struggle, Sherlock tugs at John’s jumper. “Stop lying on it,” he demands. His weight pins John’s thighs, his eyes turn wild, and his hands drag John upward to force him to sit. Sherlock tears the first jumper off, but there’s a second beneath, a buttoned cardigan, and two more layers beneath even that.  
  
Dying for heat, John interferes with all efforts to disrobe him. He clutches Sherlock around the middle, over his shoulders, anyway Sherlock can be held mid-struggle. Sherlock burns as if on fire. Wouldn’t that be lovely, to be on fire?  
  
“Do it,” John begs. He bites, hard, on Sherlock’s collarbone, but doesn’t break the skin. Time for that later. John’s turn now. “You’re so hot, Sherlock, you’re just amazing. God, I need this, you’ve no idea.”  
  
“Yes I do,” Sherlock practically growls, fighting his way through John’s cardigan and button-down. He shoves both layers over John’s shoulders and flings them aside before pinning John back against the bed. John trembles and shivers, but he doesn’t resist when Sherlock kicks the duvet off. Not when this puts Sherlock on top of him, directly on top of him, the best blanket the world has ever known. Sharp and impossibly everywhere, Sherlock’s hips jab into John’s. Sherlock keeps shifting as if they might slot together. Seeking out a spot, Sherlock lips along John’s jaw.  
  
John wraps his arms around Sherlock anew, holds tight, digs his fingers into muscle where it flexes over bone. “Do it.” John’s t-shirt rucks up with Sherlock’s motions. Sherlock’s hands wander downward and Sherlock has to adjust, breaking the seal of his lips on John’s skin.  
  
John very nearly cries. Hands slippery with sweat, he grabs at Sherlock’s shoulders. “What the hell are you waiting for?”  
  
Sherlock rears up, kneeling, and scoops up John’s legs beneath the knees. Droplets fall from his hair onto John’s chest. Still tugging at John’s legs, Sherlock plunges back on top of him. Half-winded, stunned from impact and heat, John wraps arms and legs both about Sherlock. His hand slides in a wet, sticky smear on Sherlock’s back. John finds the scratch after a moment of fumbling.  
  
“I tore you open,” John says, marvelling.  
  
His pelvis bruising John’s, Sherlock sets their foreheads together and pants, “I  _know_.”  
  
John laughs. Sherlock bites John’s mouth, his lower lip. John groans. His body jerks. He tastes Sherlock before he tastes his own blood. Sherlock drinks him, gnaws on him more. The sharp pain sets off the chaffing friction between their lower bodies. For one absurd instant, John thinks Sherlock must have three hipbones, all blazing knives, the lot of them, but the thought passes. John digs his fingers into Sherlock’s back. John claws, and Sherlock gasps and twists and never stops sucking at John’s lip.  
  
When Sherlock’s taste overpowers the tang of blood, Sherlock seeks farther into John’s mouth with his tongue. A metallic aftertaste clings to Sherlock, and John cannot sate himself on it no matter how he tries. He’s warm, but not warm enough. Sherlock’s damp hair clings to John’s forehead and brings a chill with it. John shifts to brush the locks away, and the scent of blood spikes.  
  
Sherlock seizes John by the wrist and sucks on his fingers, his mouth taking in three in a comfortable motion. John twitches as Sherlock’s tongue explores his bloody fingertips, his knuckles. Sherlock closes his eyes. His hips stop. His entire body stops, absolutely tense, except to shove John harder against the mattress. Teeth tight against John’s fingers, Sherlock sighs out through his nostrils. John shivers when Sherlock pops off.  
  
“My blood, not yours,” Sherlock reports, eyes hazy.  
  
“Your back,” John says.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
John chews on his lip until the blood begins to well again. He and Sherlock say nothing for a significant time after, enraptured by the taste, enthralled by the heat. John’s hands sticks to Sherlock’s back over the fresh wounds, blood kept in reserve. Tongue lazily flicking out, Sherlock nibbles at John’s lip until the tension in his body slips away.  
  
Eyes closed, John feels the scratch of a stubbly cheek against his own, but the sensation is oddly distant. It doesn’t irritate. It simply is. All of John wants to lie limp, just the way Sherlock lies on top of him. He listens to Sherlock breathing beside his ear. So much heat. John drifts in it. Sherlock’s hips don’t hurt John’s anymore, or not as much.  
  
Slowly drifting, John jerks back to awareness as his hand peels off Sherlock’s back. John nearly forgot. He has to do something important.  
  
Sherlock groans and wraps an arm around John’s head, elbow on John’s shoulder, hand in his hair. “Stay.”  
  
“Not going.”  
  
“Then stay still.”  
  
John finds words for what he wants. “Let me lick you.”  
  
Sherlock turns his head. John also turns his head. Their noses do brief and bewildered battle. Much too close, John can’t focus his eyes on Sherlock’s. Sherlock’s hand shifts on John’s head. Sherlock says, “You’re a little late for that.”  
  
John lifts his hand from Sherlock’s back and looks at the smudge of red. “You’re still bleeding.”  
  
“Oh,” Sherlock says, as if this never occurred to him. “You want to lick my back.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Sherlock flushes as he nods, blood welling up against his skin, but John moves to lap him up where he already leaks. Sprawled on his stomach, Sherlock groans and sighs. John licks sweat and blood both, leaving only saliva. He swallows each taste of heat.  
  
“Stings,” Sherlock murmurs against the pillow.  
  
John lifts his head, his eyes on Sherlock’s nape. “Should I stop?”  
  
Sherlock reaches back for John’s hand. An odd gesture, but he relaxes so when John lets him entwine their fingers. “Never.”  
  
“That’s longer than we have, Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock huffs. Lying atop his back, John rides the breath. Sherlock says, “Until we die, then.”  
  
“Yeah, all right.” John lowers his mouth, content.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone, go back and read all the warnings in the tags. All of them. 
> 
> Thank you. You may now proceed.

The warmth beneath John’s cheek moves. John tightens his grip, murmuring discontent. He cracks open his eyes. “What?”  
  
“Transport.” Even muffled against John’s pillow, Sherlock’s distaste is clear.  
  
Sleepily blinking, John lifts his face from Sherlock’s back. His skin peels away from Sherlock's like a piece of an orange. Or a blood orange, John muses, studying the scratches and bite marks he’s left. Some initial scabbing, no signs of infection. “Stomach?”  
  
“Bladder.”  
  
John settles back down. “Piss in one of the bottles.”  
  
Sherlock works his arm free and his shoulder blade becomes a threat to John’s face. John rolls off him accordingly. “I’m going downstairs,” Sherlock says without moving. He lies face-down, sprawled without modesty.  
  
“Yeah, okay.” John also doesn’t move. The separation from Sherlock cools John on his overheated bed. Additional movement wouldn’t make him too hot, not yet, but it would be unpleasant. He can feel warmth like syrup dripping down his throat and under his skin. It feels like it ought to be sweet, but his mouth tastes only of blood.  
  
Sherlock turns his head to face toward John. Sherlock’s neck makes an unpleasant sound. John winces and Sherlock doesn’t. Sherlock simply says, “Come downstairs. You should eat.”  
  
John grunts agreement and sits up. Sherlock gestures John off the bed before hauling John’s sheet out from under the duvet. He bundles himself up as if the sheet were swaddling clothes, but then, Sherlock hasn’t much in the way of clothing. The biting urge must’ve taken him in the bath.  
  
For his part, John adjusts his trousers—and immediately pulls his hand away. He looks down. Very calmly, he wipes his hand on the side of his leg. “Sherlock, there’s semen on my trousers.”  
  
His arms wrapped up in the sheet, Sherlock shrugs. “It’s not as if you’ll live to wash them.”  
  
John gapes at him.  
  
Sherlock frowns. “You’re not seriously about to do laundry  _now_?”  
  
“No,” John says. “No,” he says again, and this time he lifts his hand in a halting gesture. “That’s not—No. I’m not asking how to get dried semen off, I’m asking how it got  _on_.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sherlock says. “That bit is on the outside of your trousers, so clearly it’s not yours. Someone else’s penis must have ejaculated it. An utter mystery, John.”  
  
John stares. He stares at Sherlock in his sheet. He stares at his mess of a bed. There are other words, but the one he says is still, “No.”  
  
Sherlock stands up. He is very tall and very rumpled and, now that John’s paying attention, looks like he just had an hour-long snog. Sense memory promptly hits John in the face. And hands. And cock.  
  
Jesus fucking Christ.  
  
“Not good?” Sherlock asks.  
  
John takes a deep breath and doesn’t let it out in a bloody fit. He exhales harshly instead. “Just go to the loo.”  
  
Eyes wide and fixed on John’s face, Sherlock doesn’t move.  
  
John stomps to his dresser, shucks his trousers, and pulls on a fresh pair of jeans. He pointedly ignores how bruised his hips feel. The entire time, Sherlock’s gaze drills into the back of his head.  
  
“I quote,” Sherlock snaps, biting the harsh consonant, “‘What the hell are you waiting for?’”  
  
“You couldn’t settle on a place to bite!” John shouts within a whisper. Hushed voices, they have to stay quiet. He wheels around to make sure Sherlock can’t miss a cubic millimetre of John’s immense ire. “That wasn’t sane behaviour! We’ve gone mental.”  
  
Sherlock lifts his chin. “I haven’t.”  
  
“No, you were a lunatic to start with.” John rubs his hand over his face. “You can’t just—”  
  
“ _John_.” Sherlock darts forward and seizes John by the wrist. John tugs back, the motion automatic, but Sherlock rides out the movement in order to manhandle John’s watch. No longer secured, the sheet slips to the floor, but John’s stomach drops even faster.  
  
“How long were we asleep?” John asks.  
  
“I’m not sure. At least forty-five minutes. I wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to check the time beforehand.” Sherlock releases John to touch his own hair. “Completely dry,” he reports. He steps out of the pile of the sheet, unselfconsciously displaying his abused back. Sherlock looks down, adjusting his pants, and makes a noise of discomfort. He mutters something, but John can only focus on the red lines and livid circles across Sherlock’s skin. John scratched those, sucked them.  
  
John touches his split lip. There’s blood under his fingernails, Sherlock’s. He’s literally red-handed.  
  
Sherlock turns around and the sight of his relatively undamaged chest shoves John back into the moment. “John, you’re not listening.”  
  
He grimaces in apology. “Sorry. You were saying?”  
  
“It’s been over an hour.” His tone brooks no question. No one should look that authoritative naked and soiled, but Sherlock might as well be in a full suit.  
  
“Are you cold yet?” John asks.  
  
“Still cooling off,” Sherlock says. “You?”  
  
John traces a half-circle, shoulder to sternum to shoulder. “It’s that far down. Feels like it’s dripping.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyebrows rise. “Quick.”  
  
“First time through a new place always takes the longest,” John reasons. “It's true for people, could be true for this.” He worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I don’t know how much faster this will be.”  
  
“Too many variables,” Sherlock agrees.  
  
“Yeah.” John nods, unable to meet Sherlock’s eyes. “Even for you.”  
  
“John—”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Sherlock weaves into John’s direct line of sight with a confused frown. “What?”  
  
Fists clenched, John closes his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve killed you.” He’ll never know how his voice remains steady, but he’s forever grateful for it.  
  
“You’re an idiot,” Sherlock says with next to no inflexion.  
  
“Yeah, I worked that out when she bit me, thanks.”  
  
“I noticed that yesterday when I offered you your life and _you refused_ ,” Sherlock snaps.  
  
Guilt slams into anger and John stares him down. “Not at the cost of yours. We’ve been over this, Sherlock. You fucking promised you were never doing this again.”  
  
Sherlock groans and tugs at his hair. Dried while dishevelled, his curls are a wild mess to start with. The tangled nest only grows as Sherlock rakes his hands through it. “This isn’t the same!”  
  
“How is this different?” John demands. “Really, how?”  
  
“Don’t be blind--”  
  
“Give me one reason. Just one.” John stares him down. His arms tremble, taking after his clenched hands. “You can’t, can you?”  
  
“Fine! Yes, John, everything is my fault. I put your life above your trust.” Colour rides high in Sherlock’s chest and cheeks. He gesticulates with harsh, abrupt slices of his hands. “I want you to live: what a betrayal!”  
  
“You would have fucking lived.” John invades his space, sheer proximity forcing Sherlock’s hands down and baring his stomach. John doesn’t need height to loom. His rage towers by itself. “You risked everything on a stupid gamble without telling me— _again_ —so don’t you dare blame me for not cooperating.”  
  
“It was the only solution!”  
  
“Clearly it wasn’t! You didn’t even let me loose intentionally!”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes dart down to John’s mouth. He sways forward before stepping pointedly back. “John...”  
  
John checks with his tongue and discovers he’s started bleeding again. Lovely. He wipes his mouth with the back of his bandaged hand. It’s not that much blood.  
  
“Okay,” John says. “You, downstairs, get changed. Water for both of us, food for both of us. We finish  _Star Wars_  and then we call emergency services.”  
  
Sherlock frowns.  
  
“We aren’t dying in the middle of an argument,” John tells him. “Let’s just say it evens out.”  
  
For a moment, Sherlock looks ready to protest, because of course he would. Instead, his shoulders drop and his expression turns tired, exhausted. He says, “Fine. But I need another bath first.”  
  
“You can manage on your own?”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who won’t be able to manage soon.”  
  
“Right,” John says. “Right. Sorry.”  
  
Sherlock shrugs and they head downstairs, Sherlock’s clawed back leading the way before John’s itching hands.  
  
  
  
Nothing appeals. John searches the fridge and scavenges through the cupboards. His stomach insists he’s not hungry, even though the last thing he ate was popcorn last night.  
  
A sure sign of the end of the world, Sherlock gravitates to the tins of soup and heats one up with marked impatience. Though Sherlock’s back is now covered by a crisp purple shirt, John retreats from the stove all the same. Too hot. He takes shelter in front of the open fridge. He sticks his head in.  
  
“How far along is it?” Sherlock asks.  
  
John stays put. “It was trickling before, but now it’s more of a slow ooze.” Trickling. Yes. He wants water. He closes the fridge to open the freezer. Ice water. “Hand me a glass?” He reaches without looking and Sherlock sets the glass against his hand. “Ta.”  
  
Sherlock’s spoon scrapes against the sauce pan as he stirs. “It’s stopped giving you growing pains, I take it.”  
  
“Mm.” His glass piled high with ice, he fills up the remaining space with tap water. He drinks, ice knocking against his lips and teeth. Much too cold and absolutely perfect. “It feels more syrupy. Like it ought to taste sweet.”  
  
“And not burning?”  
  
John sits down at the kitchen table to keep him company. “Not really, no.”  
  
Sherlock hums, eyes on his soup.  
  
“You’ve cooled down,” John notes. Shirt, trousers, socks: not yet freezing but certainly closer to a normal temperature. Faint, dark smudges discolour the back of Sherlock’s button down, as if it went through the laundry with a particularly vicious pen.  
  
“It would take at least a day for me to arrive at the same state you were in.” Sherlock’s words come out detached. “Not that it matters. You’re progressing far more rapidly than I am this round. You’ll bite me well before I freeze.”  
  
John will. The certainty of it aches in his jaw. He licks his split lip. “Where do you want it?”  
  
Sherlock stops moving. Not as if frozen, but as if paused, as if reality had to stop and take a breath before the plunge. Sherlock doesn’t turn around. He does lower his head slightly, eyes resolutely on his meal, the back of his neck bare to John’s gaze.  
  
“A central spot works out better than an extremity,” John says. “I don’t feel so lopsided this time.”  
  
“I think it might be best if you kept to my back.” Sherlock’s voice is tight. The line of his shoulders is tighter. He’ll keep pulling the scratches open, this way.  
  
John rolls his glass between his hands. The pile of ice within turns this way and that. He says nothing more until Sherlock piles his research to the side and puts down a bowl in its place. Then Sherlock puts down a second bowl in front of John. Beef and lentil.  
  
“Not hungry,” John says.  
  
Sherlock skewers him with the grey metal of his eyes. “Eat.”  
  
He shakes his head. “Too hot.”  
  
Sherlock continues to glare.  
  
John meets his gaze and bursts into giggles.  
  
“What?” Sherlock snaps.  
  
“ _You_ badgering  _me_ to eat.”  
  
Sherlock’s face cracks into a grin. He ducks his head and turns his face away. He clears his throat. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”  
  
They bicker until John’s soup goes cold, but that’s for the best anyway.  
  
  
  
John sets the DVDs up to the last point Sherlock can remember watching. They sit in their armchairs unrestrained. Sherlock watches the telly with a bored, sleepy expression. John’s eyes glaze over. The sound of Sherlock breathing beside him is far more important than anything coming from the speakers. Sherlock won’t leave him, not while the syrup pools in the bottoms of John’s feet.  
  
John shifts in his chair to better curl up on it. He unbuttons his shirt and considers taking off the sweaty t-shirt beneath, but the air against his forearms is sufficient. He bundles up his shirt and uses it as a support for his head. Sleep rises up behind his eyes.  
  
He wakes in the night. He reaches for Sherlock. Sherlock’s armchair is empty.  
  
John scrambles to his feet and promptly tumbles, his blood pressure wrong and his back aching.  
  
“John?” Sherlock calls, an abrupt cry from the sofa. A lamp clicks on, blinding John even with his face against the floor.  
  
“Oh, thank God,” John sighs. His heart pounds, the world wobbles, and yet, all will be well. “Don’t ever do that again.”  
  
Sherlock joins him on the floor. A trail of blankets whispers as he settles. “Do what?”  
  
John forces himself onto his side and squints up at Sherlock. “You were gone.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I was directly behind you.”  
  
“Yeah, well. Don’t.” He half-stretches, half-reaches, and his hand finds what might be Sherlock’s knee beneath the blanket pile. “You’re supposed to take care of me.”  
  
“I am.” Sherlock frees an arm and touches John’s forehead. His fingers are cool. John sighs and relaxes into the touch. “I’m going to get up and bring food from the kitchen.”  
  
“Not hungry.”  
  
“You’ll eat,” Sherlock promises. The blankets rustle as Sherlock stands. They slither after him along the floor.  
  
John sits up. He cranes his neck and then stands. The walk into the kitchen destroys him. He collapses into the nearest chair and slumps onto the table. He straightens only to peel off his damp t-shirt. Immediately after, he presses his face against cool wood. Cloth brushes against his side and a plate clinks down in front of him. John lifts his face from his arms. His skin sticks together, much like his tongue and the inside of his mouth. “Really not hungry.” Neither sandwich nor water tempts.  
  
Sherlock sits opposite. He shifts the blankets down and pulls John’s plate over. With some effort, he manages to reach into an inner jacket pocket, and John learns that their mail is no longer knifed to their mantel. Sherlock holds the jack knife steady and opens the scab on his hand.  
  
Blood wells to the surface, droplets blooming with immense colour. Red and dark with a glint from the light above them. Sherlock holds his thumb over John’s glass. One drop. Two. John watches them unfurl. Sherlock clenches his fist over John’s sandwich. The bread immediately soaks in the blood. Sherlock draws two more red lines into the bread. He pushes the plate back and John is ravenous. He turns the sandwich upside-down to better taste the blood.  
  
“I know how to take care of you,” Sherlock says as John chomps and swallows. “It’s not that difficult.” One-handed, he folds up the knife and slips it back to whence it came. His other hand, his cut hand, lies on the table in tacit promise. “I said you’d eat.”  
  
John nods along in apology. The tastes of ham and cheese override everything else. John watches Sherlock’s hand. He forces down the remainder of the sandwich with the water. He forces down the rest of the water. Sherlock takes a cursory inspection of plate and glass before giving John his hand.  
  
The table is narrow enough that John doesn’t have to strain, but he does have to bend. Elbows planted on the table, he secures Sherlock’s hand in both of his. The first taste is a tease. John scrapes his teeth against the meat of Sherlock’s thumb, coaxing the cut open. If he bites, the blood wells up. The table’s edge digs into John’s stomach. He ignores the touch of fingertips on the side of his face.  
  
It’s not enough, but he’s not ready for it to be enough. The hint of blood is enough to chase after, an elusive tang between skin and tongue. Soon, he’ll need more. Soon, he’ll be ready to transfer. Not yet. He can savour this. He has to savour this.  
  
Following the curve of John’s jaw, the backs of Sherlock’s fingers curl under John’s ear. The stroke rubs his scruff. John opens his eyes at the unfamiliar sensation. He looks at Sherlock. A grey pallor, save for the blaze across his cheeks. Swaddled in blankets. Hair an unwashed mess. Eyes dark and hooded. His hand offered as a chew toy.  
  
“Jesus  _fuck_.” John jerks his head back. “What the  _hell_ are we doing?”  
  
Sherlock shushes him. He doesn’t pull his hand away and John can’t seem to release him.  
  
“The hell are we doing?” John repeats, voice lowered out of respect for the small hours of the night.  
  
“I’m taking care of you.” The unspoken  _obviously_ echoes off the walls.  
  
“For what? No, Sherlock, seriously: for what? We’re dead. We are going to die. We missed both windows and now I’m fucking gnawing on you.”  
  
“I don’t mind the gnawing,” Sherlock says.  
  
Sherlock’s neck too far away, John throttles Sherlock’s wrist instead. Sherlock hisses, a sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t pull back. If anything, he leans forward.  
  
“This is not good,” John tells him. “This is the most not good thing we’ve ever done, do you even realise how bad that is?”  
  
“I could still think of something—”  
  
“The best scientists in the world haven’t thought of something,” John interrupts. “For months. While sane, even!”  
  
Sherlock looks at him with such haughty disapproval that John nearly takes it back, but that’s only proof they’re out of their minds. “Do you want to end it, then?” Sherlock asks. “Hm? Because we can end it. A phone call and we die. One good shout out the window could do it.”  
  
John releases him. Immediately, his chest tightens and his heart shoves itself up into his throat. Sherlock takes hold of John’s hand and John can breathe again.  
  
“I can’t do it,” John says. “Jesus, I can’t...” He swallows a lump of impossible size. He squeezes Sherlock’s hand tight. They secure each other, anchored on either side of the table by their mutual hold. The concepts and terrors clump together inside John’s head, but they never manage to fit into his mouth.  
  
Sherlock summarises the problem in its simplest form: “You know we’re going to die, but you can’t let them kill me. Which is fine. We take care of each other.”  
  
“What does that even mean?”  
  
Sherlock turns John’s hand over. He inspects the initial bite mark and runs his thumb from wrist to knuckle. “We go down together, obviously.”  
  
“I picked up on that part, yeah.” John twitches as Sherlock picks at his scab. “We’re going to get other people hurt, Sherlock. Killed. Maybe a lot of people.”  
  
“We’ll move when the time comes.”  
  
John snorts. “Right. We’ll jump in a cab. ‘Yes, hello, we’d like to go to the outskirts, please. Don’t mind my friend, he always travels with a muzzle.’”  
  
“I can rent a car and have it dropped off outside.” Sherlock works a fingernail beneath the scab and delicately begins to peel it from John’s skin. “We won’t have to so much as speak to anyone.”  
  
The wet sheen of unshed blood glistens from the back of John’s hand. His heart rate slows. They wait, but the blood never wells up to form a droplet. John clears his throat. “Can you set that up now?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“The car,” John says. “Can you make sure it comes before Mrs Hudson gets back?”  
  
“Of course I can.”  
  
John pulls his hand away and hides it under the table. “I need you to do that right now.”  
  
“It’ll be  _fine_.” Sherlock reaches for him. “Come here, I’m cold.”  
  
“No,” John says. He stands and keeps the table between them. “You get us the car first. Anything you want after, but the car comes first.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’ll send an email.”  
  
“ _Now_.”  
  
Sherlock sets off at a wobbling pace, bumping against the kitchen doorframe and the hallway walls.  
  
“Mm.” Sherlock fetches it and returns the battery to its proper place. He works his arms out of his sheet and drums his fingers on the keyboard. “It’s loading.”  
  
Nodding, John leans against the cool plaster of the wall. “How long for a confirmation email?”  
  
“Not until regular business hours.”  
  
“Right.” John closes his eyes. Sweat follows the lines of his body, a slow drip over riverbeds of skin. He picks up his abandoned t-shirt. He wipes himself down. Sherlock types.  
  
“Here, look.”  
  
John leans down to read over Sherlock’s shoulder. He follows Sherlock’s pointing hand and sees the email in the sent file. He skims the contents and breathes for the first time in too long.  
  
“All right?” Sherlock asks.  
  
John nods, sits on the cool linoleum, and flops onto his back. The laptop clicks shut. Sherlock lies down beside him with a great rustling of blankets. They stare at the kitchen ceiling.  
  
“I’ll need to bite you in a few hours,” John says.  
  
Shifting onto his side, Sherlock offers his hand.  
  
John glances at the red gleam along the cut. “Hours, I said. It doesn’t want to switch now.”  
  
“I’m taking care of you,” Sherlock explains, an implacable argument. He lays his hand on John’s overheated chest.  
  
John closes his eyes.  
  
Sherlock shoves a bit of a blanket under John’s head.  
  
“This is how I know you’ve gone mental,” John murmurs.  
  
Saying nothing, Sherlock curls a bit closer.  
  
John dozes. John wakes. His body blazes. His back aches. A yawn cracks his split lip open anew. Beside him, a bundle of blankets rises and falls slowly in its middle. Watching, John licks his bloody lip. John ought to warm him.  
  
There’s so much heat inside Sherlock. All John has to do is let it out.  
  
His tongue runs over his canines and incisors. Sharp, but not sharp enough to make it clean. Flesh will tear. Propping himself up on one elbow, he reaches for the top layer on Sherlock’s pile, the afghan from his armchair. Whatever spurts or splatters, John can catch it with the blankets. He’ll press the cloth over the wound, sopping up the blood, and he’ll suck it clean once the bleeding stops. He’ll rip into Sherlock and, after, he’ll apply pressure.  
  
His hand stops. John sits up fully. He stares at the layers of cloth, largely clean. He watches the rhythm of undisturbed breathing. He thinks, for one instant, that perhaps he ought to clean the area before he bites, as if preparing to traditionally draw blood.  
  
He could do that instead. Take the blood, drink it, and his stomach churns at the thought. It’s not the blood. It’s the  _biting_. It’s flesh between his teeth and the sweet moment between pressure and puncture.  
  
John runs his hand over his face. His tense shoulders fall in a shaking exhalation.  
  
He shakes his head. Once, twice. Careful, as close to silent as he can come, John pushes himself to his feet. The room spins. He holds onto the counter. The kitchen stops spinning. He pads away in just his pants, no need to worry about the rustle of clothing.  
  
In Sherlock’s bedroom, all the blankets have been pulled from the bed. The room is more bare and stark than ever, and that makes it a simple task to find what he needs.  
  
John sits down with it on the edge of the bed. He loads it. Shoulders hunched, he takes off the safety.  
  
His throat tightens. His hands do not shake. His pulse counts out the moments of his hesitation, resounding louder and louder in his ears.  
  
He licks his split lip and opens his mouth. The metallic tang of his gun is nothing like that of blood. It disappoints. He adjusts his grip. Sherlock’s bedroom blurs. John blinks until it stabilises.  
  
A sharp noise comes from the kitchen, the crash of a chair kicked by a flailing leg.  
  
Pull the trigger. Pull it  _now_. Do it.  
  
His hand won’t obey.  
  
“ _John_.”  
  
Back to the door, John keeps his gaze straight ahead. His teeth chatter against his gun, the chill of a fever heat.  
  
Behind him, the mattress dips.  
  
“I’m directly behind you,” Sherlock informs him. His voice is a steel bar, cool, unyielding, entirely ready to strike or support. “If you fire, you shoot us both.” Sherlock draws closer, moving on his knees. His hands touch John’s shoulders. His chin nudges against the top of John’s head. His chest presses against John’s back.  
  
Sherlock shifts, sinking lower. His hands creep forward to cover John’s. His touch quenches, a promise pulsing beneath cool skin. John bites the gun instead of him.  
  
“You’re going to stay with me, John. Don’t ruin it.”  
  
John sobs around the barrel. His arms tremble. Sherlock peels John’s fingers away from the grip.  
  
“Stay with me. Hold onto my hand instead, John, hold on--”  
  
John relinquishes the gun.  
  
In one impossibly swift movement, Sherlock flicks on the safety and unloads the gun. He hurls firearm and ammo in opposite directions before John can reach for them.  
  
“Sherlock--”  
  
Sherlock slams him down and shoves him onto his back. He digs his fingertips into John’s scar. “What were you thinking?” Sherlock hisses between clenched teeth. “You are mine to kill, even you have to be able to see that.”  
  
Winded, breathless, John shakes his head.  
  
“There is no leaving, John.” His fingernails twist into John’s skin, through his skin. Sherlock’s weight pierces him and John’s arms fall to the bed, limp. Tousled and splotchy in his rage, Sherlock rips John apart with his eyes. “I’ll chain you down if I have to.”  
  
John’s muscles twitch and jump, but Sherlock shifts his weight without hesitation or blinking. The clutch of his clawing hand stings. It stings until John shivers. Sherlock clamps down all the harder. Pain becomes a chip of ice, melting on his tongue, dripping down his spine. John shakes. He trembles. His eyes flick down to the new wound opened over the old, to bloody hands and ripping nails.  
  
“I’d break your leg if you ran,” Sherlock promises. “A quick dislocation of the kneecap. What would you do to me?”  
  
“I’ll fucking paralyse you.” Though the threat flies from John’s lips, his hands lie dormant. He makes no attempt to protect himself.  
  
Sherlock’s eyes gleam. “How? Where?”  
  
“Down low. Let you keep arm mobility.”  
  
Breathing heavily, Sherlock loosens his grip to sit on John’s stomach rather than kneel. His palm pulls across torn skin.  
  
John groans. His feet twitch. His toes curl, involuntary.  
  
Sherlock freezes. All his body but that arm remains perfectly stationary as he drags his fingers through the injured area. Gentle at first, light and slow, smooth save for where blood turns the slide sticky. More pressure now, more force. Hints of fingernail tease at the damage still left undone.  
  
Sherlock’s hand slows. Stops. The touch fizzles and flattens into a background sensation.  
  
When John can’t stand the lack any longer, he inhales deeply, pressing his chest into the stinging contact. He’d arch his back if Sherlock weren’t sitting atop him. God, he needs the chill.  
  
“This is how I stop you from killing yourself,” Sherlock reasons. “You can’t disengage when I hurt you.”  
  
“Doesn’t hurt.”  
  
“No?” Sherlock digs his thumb into John’s shoulder,  _hard_.  
  
A strangled whine fights its way between John’s teeth. His limbs jerk and his body shoves into the touch.  
  
Sherlock leans in, his weight on John’s sweaty shoulders and stomach, his eyes much too close. “What does it feel like?” His sour breath heats John’s cheek. His trousers sticking to the sweaty skin of John’s belly, Sherlock’s weight restricts John’s breathing. “What else can I do to you?”  
  
“Anything,” John says, and Sherlock’s face goes slack.  
  
“Say that again.” His voice drops so low, it vibrates in John’s stomach. Sherlock’s eyes roam down John’s throat, across his bare and bloody chest. Without either moving, the contact between them changes. It is the difference between a touch and a caress.  
  
“Not that kind of anything,” John says.  
  
Without breaking contact, Sherlock stops touching him. The form remains, hands against skin, and yet the essence vanishes, as if Sherlock has withdrawn into an unknowable depth within his own body.  
  
“I see,” Sherlock says.  
  
“I was thinking more along the lines of a knife or something.” His tongue darts out to his dry lips. “Cleaner than scratching.”  
  
Sherlock shakes his head, refusing eye contact. “You could kill yourself with a knife. No.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot, you were about to shoot yourself.”  
  
“Not anymore.”  
  
“It was minutes ago.”  
  
“Yes, and now I’ve changed my mind,” John insists.  
  
Sherlock presses his weight down on John’s chest. The heat smothers him. “Do I have to contain you? Or merely hold your interest until you need to bite?”  
  
“Let me cut you instead.” John picks up Sherlock’s hand from his chest and runs his fingertips over the circular scab, the purple contusion. His own blood smears between their fingers. “There’s too much damage in biting. Look at that. It’s not precise enough. I’d stay shallow with a knife. Less bruising.”  
  
“I won’t arm you,” Sherlock says, but he hesitates first.  
  
John digs his fingernails into the bruise and grins when Sherlock hisses. “Fine. I’ll get one next round.” He keeps picking at the scab until blood rises. Sherlock’s blood on the back of the hand, John’s blood across the palm. John lifts his head, his mouth already open, but Sherlock twists his arm free. John immediately seizes Sherlock by the shirt and rolls them both.  
  
Pinned in the centre of the bed, Sherlock makes no further move toward escape. His legs relax on either side of John’s thighs. His chest rises and falls against John’s fisted hands. Face flushed beneath the stubbly beginnings of a beard, Sherlock says, “Make it fresh.” He lifts his chin, offering his jugular. John sways forward but does not bite.  
  
“Git.” John unbuttons Sherlock’s cuff. “Now who’s suicidal? My teeth, your throat? Not going to end well.”  
  
“I don’t mind if you kill me.”  
  
They both stop.  
  
John blinks at Sherlock. Sherlock stares evenly back.  
  
“I mind,” John says.  
  
“Each possibility has its merits,” Sherlock answers with the certainty of a man who has considered his options. “Either way, it will be amazing.”  
  
John thinks about it. John swallows. He resumes pushing up Sherlock’s sleeve.  
  
Sherlock gives an abrupt thrash. John slams him down, reflex, instinct, and Sherlock laughs. “Yes, just like that. You see?”  
  
“All right, yes,” John says. “We finish this together.”  
  
Smug as only he can be, Sherlock grins and relaxes into the bed. He displays his throat. “As you will.” His pulse visibly pounds beneath his skin. Too tender, too vulnerable to accept, and now a bite to the arm wouldn’t compare.  
  
John unbuttons Sherlock’s shirt instead. Tight cloth parts willingly over cool skin. Sherlock shivers under John’s hands, and John doesn’t look at his face. “Over the collarbone,” John says. “I can...”  
  
Barely breathing, Sherlock answers, “Yes.”  
  
“You wouldn’t bleed out.” John lowers himself and eases down. No rush, not with Sherlock so far from freezing, not when there’s no threat of escape. He can take his time. He can aim.  
  
Sherlock nods and his chin brushes John’s hair. “Do it.” He takes John by the back of the head, his fingers tense and cold.  
  
John wets his lips and his tongue brushes skin. Sherlock jerks under him, against him. Ignoring the pressure against his stomach, John sets his mouth over bone and bunches the skin with his teeth. Harder now, harder, harder still. His is a slow, stubborn bite. Skin gives way against his incisors, the first true puncture. Heat spills against his tongue, into his mouth, over his lips.  
  
As John sucks him up, Sherlock’s hand tightens in his hair. Save for this, Sherlock holds himself perfectly still. His tense legs frame John’s. Though hot where he presses against John, the only movement there is in line with Sherlock’s pulse. John's own disinterest is clear within his pants. Sherlock must be able to feel that lack, but he says nothing, does nothing, asks for nothing.  
  
John bites. He gnaws. He leaves a line of wreckage along Sherlock’s collarbone, glistening with blood and saliva and the damp flesh between skin and bone. The damage remains within his control.  
  
With a gasp, with a twitch, Sherlock’s tense body begins to unwind. John gives him more teeth, more pressure. He slurps audibly, and Sherlock’s hand in his hair at last relaxes.  
  
John bites, and he sucks, and he licks, and he keeps at it until his elbows ache from holding him up. Falling asleep, his forearms tingle. In an uncertain motion, he lowers himself fully, cheek against abused flesh. Sherlock hisses.  
  
John lifts his head. He looks up, toward Sherlock’s chin and his nose and his eyes beyond. When John digs his fingernails into Sherlock’s side, Sherlock looks back at him. They lie chest to bloody chest.  
  
“All right?” John says.  
  
“I’m warmer, but I can’t be sure it’s an effect of the transfer.” Sherlock’s voice rasps beneath the clinical phrasing.  
  
“Should be. I’m cooling down.” Taking his weight on hands and knees, John lifts off Sherlock. He lies down beside him, curled a bit awkwardly on his side.  
  
Sherlock mirrors him. His eyes stray downward to where John doubtlessly sports bloody stubble. John wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. He licks his lips and can’t tell if the blood is Sherlock’s or if his split lip has opened again.  
  
“Let me,” Sherlock says, not a question or a request. He licks his thumb and smudges gently at John’s cheek.  
  
John closes his eyes and leaves him to it. A damp slide across his cheekbone precedes a tactile inspection of his nose. Increment by increment, cooling spit replaces congealing blood. Sherlock has the most trouble at the corners of John’s mouth, prodding at him until John giggles.  
  
“Hold still,” Sherlock chides. “This is why you’re so sloppy.”  
  
“Sorry, next time I’ll use a straw, would that be better?”  
  
Sherlock snorts. “This is fine.” He scratches at John’s jaw, his eyes lingering low. “Do you need a blanket yet?”  
  
“I’m all right.” Cool at the edges, but what else can be expected for a man in his pants? “Maybe in a bit, though. You all right?”  
  
“I just told you.”  
  
“You said you were warmer.”  
  
Sherlock bites his lip, his own lip. His fingers on John’s face stall. The intent behind them feels fuzzy, like a paused tape. Then Sherlock removes his hand, licks his fingers perfunctorily clean of blood, and John understands. It takes him a moment to speak. The silence is too heavy. He squeezes out from under it.  
  
“You can... directly, if you want,” John offers. “I mean, that would be easier. Than. Than that. You’re practically a cat already, half the time.” He makes the statement and he closes his eyes. He lies there, one arm folded beneath his side, the other carefully not touching anything, and he waits for Sherlock to do as he will.  
  
The tip of Sherlock’s nose is cold. His tongue is not. His tongue is not cold and not dry. There is a great number of things Sherlock’s tongue is not, and John thinks about those for a bit. First is the tongue, then the sucking, then the hint of teeth. Waiting for a bite, John’s muscles relax. He could almost fall asleep as Sherlock holds his head and angles him this way and that. The oral inspection roams. Jaw, cheek, nose, even behind his left ear.  
  
John’s mouth, Sherlock leaves alone, or perhaps leaves for the last. Sherlock pauses, his breath on John’s lips, and John opens his eyes.  
  
Sherlock waits. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t ask to.  
  
John shifts his head between Sherlock’s hands. He angles his forehead closer, and Sherlock meets him in kind. One sweaty, one clammy, they press their brows together, close their eyes, and sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

“Jesus, it’s cold.” John searches about blearily and without success. “Where are your sheets?” Even sitting up against the headboard, he can’t spot any in Sherlock’s bedroom.  
  
“Kitchen floor.” Lying more or less facedown, Sherlock flops his hand in the approximate direction.  
  
“Why?”  
  
Sherlock turns his head, arching his neck. “You were about to kill yourself. Why stop to pick up blankets?”  
  
“About that,” John says.  
  
“I will restrain you if necessary,” Sherlock answers without moving.  
  
“How did you know? What I was... doing.”  
  
Sprawled and twisted with an unblinking stare, Sherlock does a remarkable, if unwitting, impression of a cat. “I didn’t hear you in the loo.”  
  
John picks at a spot of blood on the mattress.  
  
Heavier than lead, Sherlock’s gaze transfers to the gooseflesh on John’s bare arms. “Here,” Sherlock says. He reaches backward, folding his arms behind his spine to pull at the sleeves of his open shirt. After a quick squirm, Sherlock deposits the stained garment in John’s lap.  
  
“Thanks.” He spreads the formerly white shirt over his crossed legs. Again, smudges of blood distract him. He traces them with one finger before daring to look at Sherlock’s back. “I should do something about that. And your front.”  
  
“Hm? Why bother?”  
  
“Because—” No, a doctor’s line of reasoning won’t work. Reason itself won’t work. “Because,” John says, “I could make it sting.”  
  
Sherlock crawls up onto all fours before settling back on his haunches. “You could.”  
  
“Do you want me to?”  
  
“Do you want to?” Sherlock counters.  
  
“That’s why I’m asking.”  
  
“Fine. Where are your supplies?”  
  
Leaning heavily on each other, they fetch them together. Sherlock’s robe squeezes at John’s arms, but it’s sufficiently wide in the middle and certainly more than long enough. Already immune to the cold, Sherlock accompanies him in only his trousers.  
  
“I want this on my bed,” Sherlock tells him.  
  
“The sofa would be fine. Or a chair. Anything, really,” John says, but Sherlock’s arm slips from around his shoulders. They both wobble until John staggers after him. “Fine, okay. Wait, no, hold on.”  
  
Sherlock groans.  
  
“I need a few more things, that’s all.” They backtrack into the kitchen. John rifles through the cabinets. Sherlock’s hand rides his left shoulder. Sherlock’s forehead presses into the right shoulder. “We have to eat before we collapse.”  
  
“Don’t want to.”  
  
“Eat and I’ll hurt you.”  
  
Sherlock lifts his head.  
  
John turns around. Their faces are close. Sherlock’s teeth are at the level of John’s eyes, but John’s mouth is of a height with Sherlock’s neck.  
  
“I eat  _or_ you’ll hurt me,” Sherlock corrects.  
  
“I said ‘and’. I meant ‘and’.”  
  
“Would you?” Sherlock asks, but there’s no question in his low tone.  
  
John reaches up. Under Sherlock’s greasy hair, John pinches the cartilage of Sherlock’s ear. He digs in with his thumbnail. Eyelids at half-mast, Sherlock sways closer. John lets go.  
  
“Eat,” he orders.  
  
“You were going to see to my chest first.”  
  
“I’ll take care of your back while you eat. Now sit.”  
  
Sherlock doesn’t obey, not immediately. John raises an eyebrow and sets his hand on the knife drawer. Sherlock sits.  
  
John heats up the last tin of soup. He stands close to the stove, arms wrapped around himself as much as the robe will allow.  
  
“Multitasking, John,” Sherlock whinges.  
  
“Shut up, I’m taking care of you.”  
  
“Not  _enough_.”  
  
John is standing at Sherlock’s side. John must have moved from stove to table, but his mind neglected to record that moment. John holds Sherlock’s head between his hands, feeling for clamminess and fever. This is the important fact.  
  
“All right?” John asks him. Sherlock’s face is hotter than John’s hands. This means little, all told. The pallor could be blood loss. Sherlock’s eyes look bruised, and there’s a chance they might be.  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
Sherlock smiles faintly. He sags, his head lolling against John’s hands.  
  
“Observe your symptoms for me,” John says.  
  
“What for?”  
  
“Show off for me.”  
  
“Mm. The heat isn’t as intense. Before, it felt like it was seeping through me. This time is more... submerged. More rapid.”  
  
“What else?”  
  
“Restless.” Sherlock murmurs only a few more details before trailing off, his eyes dull in his pale, discoloured face.  
  
“You look exhausted.”  
  
“Yes, that too.”  
  
“You need to eat.”  
  
“I’m not hungry yet.”  
  
“I’m not waiting until the next round to feed you,” John says. “How’s your stomach?”  
  
“Fine.” A pause. “Acidic.”  
  
“Can you eat without being sick? Honest answer, Sherlock.”  
  
A sullen nod. His hair tickles John’s palms and John lets go.  
  
“Water, first,” John says, moving to fetch him a glass. A searing pain shoots through John’s shoulder, and John cries out, hand flying to his old wound, before he registers Sherlock’s grip on his left arm. Another sharp yank and John topples into the chair and Sherlock both. Momentum carries them only an instant before dropping them to the floor. The chair breaks, some part of it letting out a wooden snap.  
  
Sprawled on the floor, Sherlock grabs at him, eyes as wild as his clutching hands. Sherlock pulls at the robe, pulls himself up by John’s shoulders, and John goes after his wrists. He breaks Sherlock’s grip and shoves him down. The back of Sherlock’s head smacks against the floor. Hands planted on Sherlock’s shoulders, effectively on all-fours, John pins him. Even this doesn’t put an end to Sherlock’s onslaught: he kicks and thrashes, nearly bucking John off him. Sherlock switches tactics as suddenly as he’d begun, and he clamps his legs around John’s waist.  
  
John backhands him across the face.  
  
“ _John_ —”  
  
“What the hell are you doing?” He doesn’t bother with another slap, not when he has Sherlock’s neck beneath one hand. “‘I’ll attack John, what a good idea!’ No, it bloody well isn’t!”  
  
“You  _moved_.” Sherlock’s eyes turn the words to poison. “I ought to hamstring you.”  
  
“I took one step! One. In the kitchen.” He increases the pressure of his hand with each phrase. “Where I am staying until you eat your damn food.”  
  
“You can’t leave.”  
  
“Do I look like I’m going somewhere? In my pants,  _really_?” A hard squeeze for emphasis.  
  
Sherlock’s fingers dig into John’s forearms. He gets out one strained syllable: “Stay.”  
  
“I’m staying.” John eases up on the pressure but keeps his thumbs over Sherlock’s throat as Sherlock gasps for air. “Of course I’m staying.”  
  
“You tried to leave.” Sherlock coughs. His legs drop from around John’s middle.  
  
In return, John releases Sherlock’s neck. He rises into a crouching kneel, sitting on his own feet. He keeps one hand on Sherlock’s stomach for balance. “I tried to get you a glass of water, you twat.”  
  
“What, with a gun in your mouth? Is that what you slipped away to do?”  
  
“Christ, Sherlock, I’m not going to do that again.”  
  
“You were about to kill yourself.”  
  
“I changed my mind,” John says.  
  
“John, _your gun was in your mouth_.”  
  
As Sherlock’s chest heaves, the bite marks over his collarbones glisten, his skin parted to give way to fresh blood. John touches one of the imperfect circles. Broken skin sits better with him than a broken voice.  
  
“John, look at me.”  
  
“I am looking at you.”  
  
“Look me in the eyes.”  
  
John traces the bites. Sherlock’s chest rises and falls. Once, twice, thirty-odd times. On the stove, the soup begins to make sounds soup shouldn’t make.  
  
“I’m going to stand up,” John tells bloody collarbones. “I’m going to turn off the stove. You are going to eat.” Slowly, John stands. His body doesn’t want to move. It’s heavier and more sluggish than it was before the scuffle. “I might eat, too.” He leans down and offers Sherlock his hand.  
  
Sherlock grasps John’s wrist, John returns the grip, and they stagger until more or less vertical. Sherlock doesn’t let go, but John doesn’t expect him to. He turns off the stove with his other hand. His skin prickles with the sudden cold.  
  
“Did I hurt you?” John asks, eyes on the stove dial. “I heard your head hit the floor.”  
  
“Nothing hurts.”  
  
John looks up at him.  
  
“Nothing hurts,” Sherlock repeats. A tinge of awe enters his voice. “I feel it, but it’s not... I wouldn’t call it ‘pain’ any longer.”  
  
“What would you call it?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Looking down at his own chest, Sherlock presses his fingertips into the bite marks. He shivers, a minute tremble of the shoulders. “It’s like scratching an itch. Or stretching. Somewhere between the two.”  
  
“I don’t think I had that, my round,” John says. “It’s changing, it—”  
  
“What was it that you had, during your round?” Sherlock interrupts. “Hm? An itch in the back of your throat, perhaps. Is that what you were feeling?”  
  
Jaw set, John opens the cupboard. He retrieves a bowl and slams the cupboard shut. “Drop it. Just, just eat, all right? You have to eat. Whatever you want afterward, just  _eat_.”  
  
Sherlock steps closer, as if about to bite out John’s eyes. “Tell me why you tried to kill yourself.”  
  
“I’ll tell you after.”  
  
“Tell me during.”  
  
“Fine,” John says. “Fine, have it your way.”  
  
“Excellent. Sit on the floor and wrap the sheet around your legs.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My sheet, John. It’s right there.” Sherlock gestures to the site of their previous nap.  
  
“For Christ’s sake, you don’t need to tie me up.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “You’re cold. Your legs are bare.” He stares John down until John does as told. Only then does Sherlock join him with bowl and spoon. Some soup sloshes onto the floor. He sits on the sheet, pinning John down without the smallest attempt at subtlety.  
  
Steam rises from the bowl. John leans toward it. The steam dwindles slowly, and the soup takes even longer. When Sherlock has choked down a reasonable amount, John says, “I would rather kill myself than you. That’s all.”  
  
The spoon clinks against the bowl as Sherlock abandons them to the kitchen floor. His eyes never waver from John’s. “I don’t care.”  
  
“Do you want to kill me?” John asks. “I mean, really, do you?”  
  
“If I wanted to kill you, I would have called emergency services days ago.”  
  
“Look,” John says, “there are only so many ways for this to end. But you don’t want to kill me and I don’t want to kill you, and we’d both stop the other from committing suicide. One way or another, we’re going to tear each other apart.”  
  
“But that doesn’t  _matter_.”  
  
John stares at him. “Sherlock, are you listening to yourself?”  
  
“Always.”  
  
“How does that not matter?”  
  
Sherlock groans and tugs his hair into a strained, oily shape. “Everything is gone, yes? You understand that. We no longer have the rest of the world. I am here. You are here. That is everything.” He grips John’s arm. A gleam that has nothing to do with the kitchen light shines in his eyes. “ _That_ is what we need to hold onto. We stay together regardless of what follows.”  
  
John presses the back of his free hand to Sherlock’s forehead. “Right, that is definitely the fever talking.”  
  
“You’re simply cold.” Sherlock captures John’s hand and holds it between his palms to demonstrate. He curls John’s fingers, rubs them, and even breathes on them. Sherlock’s teeth come close to John’s fingertips, and John merely holds steady. Catching his eye, Sherlock grins.  
  
“Do you see?” Sherlock asks. “You have to see it, do you see it? It’s so obvious, it’s right  _there_ , John.”  
  
John looks at their hands. Scabs and bruises decorate skin drawn over sharp bone. Perhaps they’ve both bled from beneath the fingernails. Maybe that’s each other’s blood. The bite marks on the backs of their hands nearly match.  
  
“We’re all that matters,” Sherlock explains. “No one else is important for the rest of our lives.”  
  
John shakes his head. He begins to pull his hand away before a bright warning in Sherlock’s eyes stops him. “We’re not going to die at the same time,” John says.  
  
“It’ll be close enough.”  
  
“No it fucking won’t,” John says. “I’m not going to survive you again. You do  _not_ get to do that to me twice.”  
  
Sherlock narrows his eyes. “Meaning, you’d force me to endure it instead.”  
  
“What happened to us dying ‘close enough’ together?”  
  
“I could engineer that, if you’d be willing.”  
  
“Load my gun and put our heads together, you mean.”  
  
Sherlock turns John’s hand over, baring John’s wrist. He runs a fingertip down the line of John’s tendons.  
  
John shivers. His skin prickles into gooseflesh. He doesn’t pull away.  
  
“There’s another possibility I’d prefer,” Sherlock murmurs.  
  
“You mean...mutual.”  
  
A small nod, far too heavy to be a larger gesture. “I’ll cut you after you do the same for me,” Sherlock promises. “Hold you down if I have to.” Sherlock pins him already, skewers him with eyes and hands and one careful stroking fingertip.  
  
John frees his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth. “We slit each other’s wrists and then we...?”  
  
“Drink each other, yes.”  
  
All the air evacuates John’s lungs in the shape of one word. “Jesus.”  
  
“John, listen, it’s the best way—”  
  
“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” John interrupts. “That is, that’s brilliant.”  
  
Sherlock grins, wild teeth framed by bitten lips. “Obviously.”  
  
“How do you want to do it?” John leans in and, dizzy, he knocks his forehead against Sherlock’s. “It would be cleaner in the bath.” No carpets stained, no linens ruined. Less of an upset to Mrs Hudson. “D’you want to?” Rising to a kneel, he tugs at Sherlock’s arm, the skin hot beneath his cold fingers.  
  
“Somewhere else. The car will be dropped off within the next twenty-four hours.”  
  
“What car?” John frowns at him and Sherlock frowns back.  
  
“The car to leave in before Mrs Hudson returns. You were quite insistent.”  
  
“Right, that car.” John settles back on the floor. “That was quick, though, wasn’t it? Can’t believe we don’t have forever left.”  
  
Sherlock grins faintly. “We have the rest of our lives.”  
  
John snorts. He catches Sherlock’s eyes and giggles take them both. Breathless, shoulders shaking, John slumps to the floor and curls in on himself, arms folded across his centre. Sherlock lasts only moments longer, soundlessly laughing as he crumples over John. His chin digs into John’s back in a way that would once have been painful.  
  
They subside slowly. Any giggle or hiccup sparks their laughter anew. After a measureless time, they simply fit together on the floor. Their bodies shift as they breathe. Sherlock’s warm weight presses without restraining.  
  
“It should be like this,” John mumbles.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“When we do it. Me on my stomach with my hand behind my neck. You on my back with your arm on the floor.”  
  
Sherlock hums his approval. “Extremely difficult for you to escape, in that position. Though, hm. You’re not afraid you’ll try to leave me again. In fact, you’re certain you won’t.”  
  
“Is that a yes, then?”  
  
“What do you get out of the position?” Sherlock asks. “You’re getting something you want. What is it?”  
  
“I just... want to, all right?”  
  
For an instant John nearly believes Sherlock might not answer. That instant passes.  
  
“Oh.  _Oh_.” Sherlock’s weight and warmth vanish from John’s side. John grabs him, unthinking, and Sherlock smirks down at him. “That’s it. You want me on top of you so you’ll feel I’m still there, even if I do die first.”  
  
“No,” John says reflexively. “Well, maybe. I don’t know.” He sits up as well and adjusts the sheet around himself. “Are we doing it like that or not?”  
  
“We are. We will.” Sherlock sways or lunges forward, and his hands either cup John’s face or wrap about his neck. So difficult to tell which. “I’ll make it amazing, John. It will be the best way anyone has ever died. I promise.” His thumb brushes over John’s throat, tracing his windpipe. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”  
  
John nods between two blazing palms. “What about you? Is there anything else you’d like?”  
  
Sherlock’s gaze doesn’t shift from John’s eyes. It freezes, as if restrained. “No,” Sherlock answers after a pause. He removes both hands from John’s neck and returns them to his sides. “This is enough.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“I said, this is enough.”  
  
“What would make it more than enough?”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot,” Sherlock snaps. “I know it’s difficult for you, but  _try_.”  
  
Brow furrowed, John licks his lips. His healing, bitten lower lip. He swallows thickly. “Ah. I’m, um. I’m not... Well. You know I’m not.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows you’re not.”  
  
“Sherlock, everyone thinks—”  
  
“They’re morons,” Sherlock interrupts. “Oblivious and thick. Stop talking about them.” He grabs onto the edge of the worktop overhead and drags himself upward. His bare feet shuffle. He wobbles. He leans over the counter and his face leaves John’s line of sight. His ribs place themselves on display instead, bone a poorly kept secret beneath his skin. Here and there, an untouched patch of flesh peeks out between the contusions and abrasions.  
  
John studies Sherlock before inspecting his own hands. He rises into a kneeling position. The sheet barely cushions his knees from the floor. He holds steady. His hands, both hands, hold steady.  
  
When he stands, his head spins. The sheet slips and falls. He catches himself on the counter, on Sherlock. His palm warms on Sherlock’s back while his legs freeze. Without withdrawing from the touch, Sherlock turns his face away.  
  
“I can hear you grinding your teeth,” John says.  
  
Sherlock snorts.  
  
John curls his fingers against Sherlock’s fever-hot skin. He scrapes his fingernails over layers of scratches, some half-healed, most otherwise.  
  
“Something you’d like to do,  _doctor_?” Sherlock drawls, the title an insult. “Still going to bandage me up?”  
  
“No. I want to cut you open.” John picks off a scab and smears the revealed, shallow red over Sherlock’s spine. Another scab, another smudge. Sherlock looks so much better, bloody. Not as pale. With thumb and forefinger, John draws nonsense with rapidly drying ink.  
  
In slow, almost sleepy increments, Sherlock’s head lowers. Tension fluctuates through him, but his varying heart rate doesn’t visibly impact his rate of bleeding. On an exhale, Sherlock makes a noise.  
  
“What was that?” John asks.  
  
“I said, I thought you didn’t want to kill me.”  
  
“I don’t.” He rubs his red fingers against a relatively unmarked spot, but the blood has dried. “I’d keep it light. Make sure you don’t go into shock.”  
  
“We might not be able to now, biologically.”  
  
“Right. So.” John clears his throat. “Let me? Before I fucking freeze?”  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. “I’m not ready to transfer it back. It's still the same strain.”  
  
“No, not what I meant, no,” John says. “I don’t need you to bite me, I don’t need to drink, I just...” He drops his words in an untidy mental jumble and sighs. “The biting is too messy. I want it clean. I, I don’t know. Let me.”  
  
“Where?”  
  
“Your back? To start.”  
  
“In the kitchen?”  
  
“Oh, um.” One chair broken, the table small and cluttered. He doesn’t trust the counters to be sanitary half the time. “No, not in here. The sitting room.”  
  
“You want me on the coffee table,” Sherlock says.  
  
John nods.  
  
Sherlock tugs open the cutlery drawer. “Fine.”  
  
  
  
John cuts.  
  
Skin parts. Blood wells. Here a trickle, there a drip. Red obfuscates the clear lines of his making.  
  
There are many lines among the scratches. Never too deep, never too close, never too long. His hands do not slip. His head may spin, the room may rock, but his hands are utterly in control. His right hand presses against the back of Sherlock’s neck. “Stop arching into it.”  
  
“Go faster.”  
  
John doesn’t.  
  
Sherlock’s back continues into his front, skin wrapping over muscle and bone all the way around. There is angle and pressure and speed. There are hisses and gasps, and none of them are from John. John makes them louder regardless.  
  
John kneels next to him. John leans over him. John sits across from him. They move together, John to take a better angle and Sherlock to offer one. Undamaged skin is hard to find. Sherlock sits up while John considers the undersides of his arms.  
  
“I wish we could start from scratch,” John says.  
  
“Hm?” Swaying, Sherlock blinks his eyes open. “Oh. You mean a blank canvas.”  
  
“Yeah,” John says. “Wish you could see your back, too.”  
  
“Take a photo.”  
  
“With what?”  
  
“My phone.”  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
Sherlock pauses, a tiny break in his natural fluidity. “I’ve no idea. Never mind, I can feel it well enough to piece together how it must look.”  
  
John glances up to Sherlock’s eyes. Looking up is far easier than looking away, and so John sits, blade in hand, skin under his palm, watching hazy eyes in a flushed, bruised face. “How does it feel?”  
  
“Sublime. Keep going.”  
  
Choosing the site carefully, John indulges him. John muses, “I should rub you down with salt.”  
  
“Would you?” Sherlock asks, as if this is marvellous, stupendous, as if John has had an unexpected stroke of genius.  
  
“Do you want me to?” John sits up a bit straighter and cracks his back. He can walk to the kitchen, could stand long enough to retrieve the salt, he’s almost sure of it. “Sherlock? Do you want me to?”  
  
“I’ve...” Sherlock swallows. “I’ve had another idea.”  
  
Ah. John had only sparked the stroke of genius after all. “A better idea, you mean.”  
  
“Obviously, I always mean that.”  
  
“Just so we’re clear, I draw the line at flaying you,” John tells him.  
  
Sherlock scoffs. “This is about drawing blood, not losing skin. No.”  
  
“So...?”  
  
“There’s one area that’s effectively untouched. Your blank canvas, if you would.”  
  
John frowns. Matching Sherlock’s gaze, he waits, but no clarification comes. John’s eyes drift upward. “I could give you a good nick on the temple.” He reaches up and lifts Sherlock’s greasy hair out of the way. “Not a big one, I don’t want to risk that on your head.”  
  
“A second area,” Sherlock corrects. “Larger.”  
  
John’s frown returns, deeper than before.  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’m sitting on it.”  
  
“Oh,” John says. “Oh, right.”  
  
“You don’t want to.”  
  
“I’d prefer the forehead,” John says.  
  
“Go ahead,” Sherlock says, and John can’t bring the knife so close to Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock closes them, but the worry remains.  
  
John lowers his hands carefully into his lap. They stain the sheet immediately. He wipes the knife clean on the cloth over his thigh, one flat of the blade and then the other. Beneath the sheet, his own skin is frozen.  
  
“John?”  
  
“Forgot how cold I was.”  
  
“It’s not ready to transfer,” Sherlock says. “Soon. I can feel it... becoming ready.”  
  
“I’m okay. I ignored it for the past...however long that was. It’s not that bad.” The cold brings its own kind of pain. It’s sharp, for all it does not slice. It feels the way winter smells. “Do you want to cut me or bite me?”  
  
Eyes on John, Sherlock absently touches his own chest. His fingertips smudge neat red lines. John could lick them clean. “No preference,” Sherlock says, but his voice tightens.  
  
“Do you... want something else?”  
  
Sherlock groans. “Why does it  _matter_?”  
  
“Because we’re dying, you git,” John answers, an incredulous laugh trying to interrupt him. “Go on, last requests, what do you want?”  
  
“My last request is that you _stop asking_.” In a cross between a flounce and a fall, Sherlock propels himself from table to sofa. “Here, cut on my arm.”  
  
“I was only offering.” More deeply than intended, he digs the knife into Sherlock's skin. “You don’t have to be an arse about it.”  
  
“You were offering to let me fuck you until you bleed? Really, John?”  
  
John looks at him sharply.  
  
Sherlock meets his gaze.  
  
“No,” John says, “I wasn’t offering that.”  
  
“There we are, then.”  
  
“It hadn’t really crossed my mind.” He keeps the knife against Sherlock’s skin, over tense muscle.  
  
“Obviously not,” Sherlock says. “I don’t have to be at the top of my form to see that.”  
  
“Right. Okay.”  
  
“You can keep cutting me.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
John swallows. “Okay. Thanks.”  
  
“Does it bother you?”  
  
“Dying?”  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. His clumping hair clings to the sofa cushion in spots. “The other bit.”  
  
“Well,” John says, “did you want to make me bleed out the arse before I bit you?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock answers. His eyes narrow as he frowns into the middle distance. “I'm not sure why not, now. Why, does it matter?”  
  
“Not sure. Maybe. I don’t know.”  
  
“Very succinct.”  
  
John responds with a jab of the blade.  
  
Sherlock hisses. His eyes close. On his arm, drops of blood drip by the scars of track marks.  
  
John lifts the knife. A damp, red shine follows the edge. As he tilts the blade, the shine shifts, flowing, thickening, never quite able to drip. He licks his lips instead of licking metal, but it's a close thing.  
  
“We should have done this sooner,” Sherlock says. “We could have been doing this for  _days_.”  
  
“God, that would have been lovely. Would it—” again, he licks his lips “—would it be all right if I gave you that nick on the forehead after all?”  
  
Sherlock leans toward him in a casual sprawl. “Go on.”  
  
John shifts. One knee presses into the sofa cushions as he rises up. Snake-like, Sherlock moves his head in response, continually offering the right side of his face. John steadies him with one hand. John steadies himself on Sherlock. Sherlock’s eyes move beneath their closed lids, but he reacts no further at the touches. Not at John’s fingers. Not at John’s knife. He is simply still, as if relaxed into sleep.  
  
John flicks him on the ear.  
  
Immediately, two indignant eyes blaze open. “ _What_?”  
  
“You didn't look like you.” Problem solved. With a grin he can’t stop, he turns placement into pressure. Skin resists, surrenders, and bleeds. Sherlock freezes, his mouth caught open. John drags a slow crescent around Sherlock’s eye, over the eyebrow, down the temple. “That's brilliant.” John’s tongue sneaks back out between his lips.  
  
Sherlock tilts his head in a simple offer.  
  
John bends his neck and kneels lower on the sofa.  
  
The blood is simply blood. No transfer. No fulfilment. The taste arrives, but the yearning remains. He licks the curving cut. He presses his lips against Sherlock’s temple. He swallows. He drops the knife onto the floor.  
  
Blazing, Sherlock’s hands burn through the back of John’s shirt, the light touch of fingertips still torch-like. No grip, no clutch, no pulling or pressure. Only heat, solid instead of liquid. John climbs on top of him in an easy straddle. The contact pushes some of the chill from his legs.  
  
It feels right. It is right. The two of them, together, waiting to become. It won’t be long now.  
  
The bleeding slows no matter how John scrapes his teeth over the cut. He suckles until all he tastes is skin. Under him, Sherlock shifts. His thighs shake beneath John’s, and he pushes John back with a hand on each hip.  
  
“It’s fine,” John says.  
  
Sherlock snorts. “Wrong.”  
  
“No, I mean. It’s okay,” John says, and it is. He breathes in stale sweat and the sweet fever tang, and it is more than okay. “How much would it hurt?” He pulls back only far enough to meet Sherlock’s eyes.  
  
Sherlock’s hands shift on John's back, falling lower. “...You’re offering.”  
  
“How much would it hurt?” John repeats.  
  
Without hesitation: “I could make it agonising.”  
  
“Yeah, okay. Good.” He takes another lick at Sherlock’s temple, but it’s not much. His forehead ends up on Sherlock’s shoulder, the crown of his head propped against the sofa. “Think I might just lie down for it, if that’s all right.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock says. “You can do that, that’s all right. I don’t expect—I mean, you look exhausted.”  
  
“Only half feel it.”  
  
“Then you’re obviously numb.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
John doesn’t move. Sherlock curls hot fingers around the back of John’s neck. John closes his eyes. “Ta,” John mumbles. He might doze. It might be his turn to take care of Sherlock, or it might be the other way around. He doesn't know.  
  
A quiet eternity drifts around the flat. It’s almost, but not quite, warm. A chill sneaks in when Sherlock eases him back by the shoulders. The light against John’s face hurts his eyes. The air against his face is cold and dry.  
  
“If we don’t move now, I’ll bite you here,” Sherlock tells him.  
  
John hums his permission, but Sherlock pushes at him, pushes and pulls until they’re upright. John shivers, Sherlock shoves, and they stumble their way out of the sitting room. He hears the crack before he feels the hit, his shoulder’s impact against the door frame. He groans and tries to go back for seconds, but Sherlock bullies him forward, his grip unrelenting until they make it into the bedroom.  
  
Inside, Sherlock shuts the door and locks them in darkness. He flicks on the light. One arm raised against the lamp, John squints around the room for the blankets. Sherlock seizes him by the wrist. Bones grind. Bruises twinge. John makes a sound. The sound is distinctly a whimper until it becomes a moan.  
  
Sherlock grins, more teeth than lips. “Good?”  
  
“God, yes.”  
  
Sherlock pushes John onto the bed. He follows with a heavy body and crushing hands. His eyes shine. “Better?”  
  
John nods, a rapid bobbing of the head. “More. Please.”  
  
“Shirt off.”  
  
“Cold,” John protests, but Sherlock shoves a searing palm against John's neck.  
  
“I'm a furnace. Shirt off.”  
  
They strip John without John ever sitting up. John fights him, makes Sherlock beat him down. Sherlock digs his fingernails into skin. With the weight of his body behind them, his scratches nearly pierce.  
  
John writhes. He groans and he trembles. Gripping beneath the knee, Sherlock yanks John’s legs up, and the force of it, Sherlock’s fading balance, everything, topples them over and nearly off the bed.  
  
Fit to break his ribs, John laughs. Sprawled half on his back, half on his side, he slams his elbows down on Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock growls and fights open the trembling vice of John’s legs. John’s thighs burn, his hips scream, and Sherlock hasn’t even shoved John’s knees against the mattress yet.  
  
“That’s it,” John spurs him on. “Rip me open, do it. Just fucking  _do it_.” He lifts his chin, bares his throat, and grins all the wider at the absolute focus in Sherlock’s eyes. He arches his back, trying to emphasise the vulnerability of his belly, but the motion devolves into shaking, gasping, when Sherlock strikes him in the gut.  
  
Kneeling, Sherlock tries to hoist him up a second time. John’s legs slip from his hands. John’s bum lands on Sherlock’s thighs, and Sherlock is actually warm, so warm.  
  
More adjusting, more shoving. Nearly tipping over, Sherlock ruts against him as if attempting to stab John open with a too-blunt blade. Gasping, groaning, giggling, John tugs at Sherlock’s hair until Sherlock will spare a look for John’s face.  
  
“Not going to happen,” John pants.  
  
Sherlock’s colouring, already splotched and pale, grows even worse.  
  
John shakes his head. “Not on my back.”  
  
They flip John over, kicking and clawing through the process. His aching legs fold beneath him like broken bird wings. His arse hits his heels as Sherlock drags him back with a vicious hand on each hip.  
  
“Cold—”  
  
“I know,” Sherlock interrupts. One hand leaves John’s hip. “Just let me, let me—”  
  
“I'm fucking freezing—”  
  
There is, at best, half a second of warning.  
  
John’s mouth opens. In his throat, there are swears. In his mouth, there is nothing. Not breath. Not air. A vacuum of agony.  
  
“Better?” The second hand returns. Two hands, blazing, one on each side. Against John’s back: an inferno. Heat, heat everywhere, heat inside him, heat stinging him apart. "John?"  
  
John nods against his folded arms, teeth digging into his forearm, his hair scraping against the bed.  
  
Dry friction and jerky movement spark the best agony his nerves have ever known. Sherlock’s chest against his back, Sherlock’s piercing lap cradling his bum, Sherlock’s heat invades him. The sides of Sherlock’s thighs slide against his, so warm, warm, warm. John’s muscles rebel, his limbs twist, and the stabs nearly soften into a slide. Slicker, somehow.  
  
“Did you just come?” John asks on the second attempt.  
  
“No.” Sherlock grunts. His pace slows to a stop. He moves one hand and touches with one finger. John keens at the sting, but he could cry at the loss of so much contact, so much heat. “You’re bleeding.”  
  
“Oh.” He lets his head drop back down. “Good. Now get on me.”  
  
Sherlock drives them both down. He pushes and tugs and slips out, and it stings, it hurts, shit and sweat and blood in the wound, but Sherlock shoves back in and John could cry with relief. Torn skin tears further. The raw burn builds without chance to fade. His body keeps trying to curl in on itself. His insides fight to rearrange, to break or burst or bend from the pressure.  
  
Pinned on the bed, face flat, body rocking, John gropes blindly behind his head. Sherlock pants against the back of his neck. His stubble scrapes, but it doesn’t scrape John open. So much below and so little up here. John rips at Sherlock’s hair, pulling Sherlock’s mouth to his shoulder.  
  
“Bite me,” John orders in a high, winded whisper.  
  
Sherlock’s teeth pinch skin without puncturing it. Reduced leverage or not from where he sprawls on John's back, Sherlock keeps pushing into him. Keeps dragging out. The stretch grows. The sting grows. It grows so  _slowly_.  
  
John digs his untrimmed fingernails deep into Sherlock’s scalp. “ _Sherlock_.” John can draw blood too.  
  
With a grunt, Sherlock scratches down John’s side. Scratching, shoving, burning, breaking. Does the skin part? Does John open? Sweat or blood, what is that between their skin?  
  
Without biting, Sherlock’s mouth rides on John's neck, on his shoulder, below his ear. Shallow breaths and straining slaps of movement speed up. Faster and not enough. Sherlock works deeper, deeper, and John is still waiting for piercing teeth on his shoulder when Sherlock’s balls hit his. “Jesus Christ, would you fucking bite me,” John chokes out.  
  
“Won't need to.”  
  
“Sherlock, I  _swear_ —”  
  
Sherlock nips him. “You’re bleeding.” Short, rough thrusts. Very short. “Down here.”  
  
John’s body tenses, clenches. He is only tension and blood.  
  
“Yes?” Sherlock asks.  
  
“Anywhere. Now.”  
  
“In a minute.”  
  
“ _Now_.”  
  
“Please.”  
  
John gives him his minute.  
  
Sherlock’s movements slow. His breathing falters. He groans and shoves and strains. He slips out and lays his cheek on John’s nape. He sets his palm over the back of John’s hand. Their skin sticks together, bound in drying red.  
  
“Tired,” Sherlock complains. “Not finished. Merely... tired.”  
  
“Bite me, all right? Bite, rest, try again later.”  
  
Sherlock lifts his head. “Again?”  
  
“When you’re the one freezing his arse off, yeah.”  
  
Sherlock’s mouth touches John’s skin. It is not a bite.  
  
Sherlock pulls back. John shivers. Sherlock moves down John’s body. John shivers more the farther he goes.  
  
Sherlock’s tongue touches John’s skin. His teeth follow. The sting and the stretch, the burn and the bleeding, it is all there, all under his mouth. John freezes. Except for that one tiny, inconsequential part of himself, he freezes.  
  
Sherlock bites and gnaws. Sherlock spreads him open, pulls each tear wider, sharper, but the heat still fades, the heat is still gone. John’s skin prickles into gooseflesh. Every hot breath against his arse only brings shivers.  
  
John turns over, nearly kneeing Sherlock in the face. “Up here. Give it to me, c'mon.”  
  
“It can transfer through your arse.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’s not.” When Sherlock’s eyes remain on John’s lower body—the trickle of blood on his thighs, his chaffed, flaccid prick—John yanks him up by the hair and shoves his other, much abused hand in Sherlock's face.  
  
Sherlock bites the meat of John’s palm. John bleeds. The shivers continue.  
  
“Somewhere else,” John says.  
  
With a growl, Sherlock tries higher. He bites John’s arms, he scrapes open scab after scab and sets his mouth to all of them, but it’s still not enough, it’s still freezing cold, and the only bit of warmth John has is Sherlock, only Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock who bites, who tears, who opens John with teeth and frustration. John holds on to him. John holds on, and holds on, and holds on.  
  
Sherlock is a fire barely contained in human skin. Sherlock is burning up. Sherlock is burning him up. Oh God. Oh thank God.  
  
John’s hands slip. They fall. He lies back against the mattress, sinks into it. He nudges his chin higher. A sigh wavers out through his lips. Sherlock’s teeth settle against his throat. They frame his windpipe. Yes. This.  
  
Sherlock’s ragged breath puffs against the side of John’s neck. Exhale, inhale. Puff, scent. Then, at last, pressure. Two curving lines of pressure, each sharply punctuated. John closes his eyes and prepares for warmth.  
  
It doesn’t come.  
  
It doesn’t happen.  
  
Nothing happens, except Sherlock rearing up, except Sherlock leaving him cold and alone.  
  
“The hell is wrong with you?” John's words fall out as more of a mumble than a demand.  
  
“It’s not transferring.”  
  
“I noticed, keep going—”  
  
“ _John_. It is  _not_. Transferring.”  
  
“So keep going—”  
  
Sherlock shakes him by the shoulders. “It won’t transfer.”  
  
“Try anyway.” When Sherlock refuses to move, John adds, “Please.” He pulls at Sherlock. “Please?”  
  
“I’m going to kill you,” Sherlock says, his voice as broken as John’s body. “Do you understand? This is it, John. It’s settled. I’m going to keep biting you until you die, I’m going to rip your throat out,  _do you understand that_?”  
  
“Yeah.” A tiny breath for a small word. Two more: “Do it.”  
  
Sherlock stares down at him, mouth bloody, face ashen. “No.”


	6. Chapter Six

"Sherlock--"  
  
" _No_."  
  
"Somewhere else, then," John says. "Just keep going."  
  
Sherlock groans. His hands clench between them instead of tearing into John's skin. "I told you, it's not transferring. There's no point."  
  
"I'm bloody freezing: that's the point."  
  
"Bloody  _and_ freezing," Sherlock corrects.  
  
"Right, now get down here." John tugs. Sherlock wavers and John tugs harder. "Look, you don't have to bite me, just come here before hypothermia sets in."  
  
Sherlock settles on top of him like dust motes waiting for a breeze, soft and slow and uncertain of his true direction. John's body withstands the shifting pressure of his weight, but poorly, exquisitely. He warms his hands on Sherlock's back and Sherlock's nose presses into his ear. The rest of John freezes, but at least Sherlock is once again in his proper place. John grips his own wrist behind Sherlock's spine.  
  
"We'll try again," John says. "Give it an hour."  
  
"It won't transfer."  
  
"You don't know that."  
  
Sherlock groans against John's cheek. "It  _won't_. It hasn't."  
  
"Sherlock, if you don't want to bite me, it's not ready to transfer."  
  
"Yes, which is why we know it's settled."  
  
John finds the implications, though it takes him a moment to track them down. He breaks into a grin. "You want to bite me?"  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"Right, so what's the problem?"  
  
Sherlock lifts up enough to stare John in the eyes. "I'm going to kill you."  
  
"Yeah, I know," John says. "What's the problem?"  
  
Sherlock opens his mouth but says nothing. His eyebrows pull together, his forehead wrinkles, and the dried and drying blood on his chin flakes.  
  
John lifts his chin higher, and Sherlock's eyes pierce him. John swallows, a loud and obvious gulp of air. Sherlock sways closer before biting his own lip bloody. It drives John to distraction, but Sherlock doesn't seem to notice.  
  
"You're going to do it," John says. "Don't pretend you won't." He sets his hand on Sherlock's nape and tries to draw him down. Failing that, John props himself up on his elbows. A fresh flare of bliss shatters his back, his spine, his arse.  
  
"You said you wanted it together," Sherlock says. "Both of us."  
  
"Okay, fine. We can still do that."  
  
Sherlock climbs off him. He doesn't go far, but John can't catch him. John's body fights to collapse in on itself. His body refuses to obey. Even beneath the bitter chill, it feels  _amazing_.  
  
"Stay where you are," Sherlock orders. "Stay there. Don't come near me."  
  
John snorts. "Yeah, that's going to happen." He nearly manages to sit up without groaning. "Get back here before I freeze."  
  
"Pay  _attention_." Sherlock tosses John's sheet at him. "We need to restrain me. Handcuffs, muzzle, now." He shakes as he sways, barefoot and naked on the floor. His thighs are stained, his arms mottled.  
  
"It's okay," John says. "Really. Honestly. Come back here."  
  
"No, John, listen--"  
  
"Come here and I will."  
  
"If I kill you here, Mrs Hudson will find the body." Sherlock staggers back until he can lean against the wall. Poor git looks exhausted.  
  
"Okay," John says.  
  
"Or I might find her first."  
  
John nods. "Right, yes. That car's coming in a few hours, isn't it?" Christ,  _hours_. "We don't really have to wait that long, do we?"  
  
"I need to be away from people," Sherlock says. Though he lies back against the wall, he still gives the impression of pacing. "Removed or put down. I don't know how long I can hold out."  
  
"You don't have to," John says. "Now is fine."  
  
"Now is not  _fine_ ," Sherlock snaps. " _Never_ is fine." He pushes off the wall to stalk over to his closet. He rips out one of his housecoats and flings it at John. "Bundle up."  
  
John doesn't have to be told twice. His body protests every glorious motion as he wraps the heat around himself. It even smells like Sherlock.  
  
"You'll drive," Sherlock says. "When the car arrives, get in and drive. Just get away from me. Wait, no." He tears at his hair. "No. That would leave me with Mrs Hudson. You'll have to move me somewhere."  
  
"And then you'll do it?" John asks.  
  
"Only then."  
  
"What if I freeze to death first?"  
  
"Only then," Sherlock repeats. "Somewhere else. Away from Mrs Hudson. Promise me that."  
  
"We're not going to last that long," John says. An assumption, but a powerful one. He manages, barely, to stand up from the bed. His arse burns without true warmth. He tries to step forward. He doesn't fall. "Come here."  
  
"Somewhere else."  
  
"Here's fine." John gestures sharply. "Now is fine."  
  
"Somewhere for only the two of us," Sherlock says. "Will you do that, John? Will you give me that?"  
  
"Would you stop stalling?"  
  
"I mean it. Last request. Just the two of us. Somewhere without people outside in the streets."  
  
"Sherlock--"  
  
"Please. Just us. Only us."  
  
"It is just us," John says. "Right now. Come here. It could still transfer back, give it another try."  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. Some of his hair flops. Some, plastered to his skull, stays in place. There are lines in his hair, visible lines from where John grabbed it. John should grab it again. Hold Sherlock in place until he understands. He should do that. Now. He should do that now.  
  
John steps closer, and Sherlock is speaking. John steps closer, Sherlock moves, and John hits the floor. Sherlock steps over him. John catches at his legs. He tears at skin but cannot hold. Sherlock kicks him and stumbles. Sherlock leaves the room. His footsteps travel down the hall.  
  
The hardwood floor hits John's face and slaps against his hands. It bruises his knees through the housecoat. The sheet slides and the floor strikes him a second time. The room twists until John shoves it in place with hands and feet and a snarl. He pulls himself down the hallway. His breaths shake worse than his legs. He barrels into the sitting room and Sherlock is on the floor.  
  
John lunges. Sherlock catches. John seizes him with both arms and Sherlock makes no attempt to escape. John pins Sherlock on his back. Sherlock lets out a muffled grunt. The leather of the muzzle shines, clean, against his face.  
  
"What the hell are you doing?" John asks. The question comes out quiet and winded. "Really, Sherlock, what the hell?" He reaches for the straps behind Sherlock's head and Sherlock catches his wrists. Sherlock squeezes, but not hard enough, not so John can  _feel_ it. "You're supposed to be here, you can't fucking run away!"  
  
Sherlock's head rolls back and forth on the floor in denial. The pressure of his grip changes deliberately rhythmically.  
  
"Do I  _look_ like I'm awake enough for Morse code?"  
  
Undeterred, Sherlock continues. John licks his lips and listens. He mouths each letter, straining to spell. He screws his eyes shut.  
  
John shakes his head. Sherlock groans and digs his fingertips in for emphasis.  
  
"But we don't have to wait," John says.  
  
Slowly, achingly, Sherlock argues. His debate is one simple statement, one John already knows. John reaches for the straps and they tussle. They grapple. They capture one another and lie between the armchairs, shins knocked and shoulders bruised. Sherlock wheezes, his breaths laboured through his nose. His eyes are a self-righteous accusation.  
  
"You're supposed to stay with me," John says. "You need me, Sherlock. That's what you're for. You don't get to go away. Never again. You understand that."  
  
Someone's sweat evaporates off John's cold, prickling skin. Someone's blood dries on him.  
  
"You understand that," John repeats.  
  
Sherlock taps his reply.  
  
 _Make it last._  
  
John's chest unclenches. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. I can do that. We'll do that."  
  
Sherlock sighs. His wild eyes slide shut. He presses his cheek against John's chest as if to push back inside him. Maybe he will.  
  
  
  
"The car's outside."  
  
Arms bound behind his back, wrists cuffed, Sherlock growls.  
  
"Heard the keys fall through the mail slot." As John sits up, he pulls Sherlock with him. John's limbs are heavier than his eyes. "C'mon. I know where we're going. The perfect spot." The first bite and the last, brought together. A place with no more leaving. He wonders if Alexis' body is still there.  
  
John makes the slow climb to his feet and stands as frozen as he would at any true peak. Coordination gone, Sherlock contorts. His focus is on John, not on standing. His focus is always on John. It always will be.  
  
He pulls Sherlock upright. He nearly overbalances. Sherlock staggers into him, presses against him, shoves his face against him. Sherlock keens. Already bundled up in countless layers, John buttons Sherlock into his greatcoat and draws him by the empty sleeves. They sway down the stairs. Sherlock nudges against him with chest and face.  
  
"Soon," John says.  
  
John picks up the keys. He unlocks the front door. He opens it, and Sherlock shoves up behind him hard enough to slam the door closed.  
  
"I won't run away." The promise comes out with a small laugh. "Don't worry."  
  
A desperate noise resonates in Sherlock's throat, bottled.  
  
John opens the door. He checks the pavement for any people, anyone who Sherlock might want instead. Jealousy flares, but it's late and close to quiet. Good. Only when he's certain they're alone, he leads Sherlock outside. He opens the passenger door and climbs in, all the way in to the driver's side, and Sherlock follows without a pause. John buckles him in. Sherlock's attempts to bite hardly hinder him. John reaches over him and pulls the passenger door shut.  
  
He inserts the key and the engine rumbles. Beside him, restrained in triplicate, Sherlock strains closer. John turns on the heat. He reaches out and touches the cut beside Sherlock's eye. Sherlock turns his mouth toward John's wrist, seeking.  
  
"I know." John picks at the forming scab. "Want you too."  
  
Sherlock groans, his eyes dark and unchanging, and John's fingers itch for the straps behind Sherlock's head.  
  
"Almost there," John promises them both.  
  
His stained hands on the wheel, he pulls away from the kerb and into the night.


End file.
